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SUMMER 2002
VOLUME 25, NUMBER 2
CMR EDITORIAL BOARD
Dirk Koning, Chair
Pal Garlinghouse, Information Services Chair
Betty Francis, Jeffrey Hansel!,
John W. Higgins, Bill Kirkpalrick
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF THIS IS5UE
JohnW. Higgins
MANAGING EDITOR
Tim Goodwin
NATIONAL OFFICE
Bunnie Riedel, Executive Director
Heidi Grace, Government
Relations/Communications
Felicia Brown, Membership/Operations
Don lames, Advertising Sales
ALLIANCE FOR COMMUNITY MEDIA
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Paul Berg, Thomas Bishop, Frank Clark,
Pat Garlinghouse, Louis Gregory, Harry Haaseh,
David ITawksworth, Ric Hayes, James Horwood,
Serena Mann, Ruth Mills, Robert Neal,
Miguel Ortega, Steve Ranierl, Kevin Reynolds,
Nantz Rickard, John A. Rocco, Debra Rogers,
James C, Rossi, Jr., Karen Toering,
Richard Turner, David Vogel
Alliance
for
Community
Media
Community Media Review [ISSN 1074-9004]
is published quarterly by the Alliance for
Community Media, Inc. Subscriptions $35 a
year. Please send subscriptions, memberships,
address changes, advertising and editorial
inquiries to the Alliance for Community Media,
666 llth St. NW, Suite 740, Washington, DC
20001-4542. Telephone 202.393.2650 voice,
202.393.2653 fax. Email: acm@alliancecm.org or
visit the Alliance for Community Media website
at www.alliancecm.org
Requests for bulk orders considered in
advance of publication. Contact the national
office for rates and delivery.
Copyright ©2002 by the Alliance for Com-
munity Media, Inc. Prior written permission of
the Alliance for Community Media required for
ail reprints or usage.
Produced through thesiudiosof
media
Upfront • pages 3-8
Bunnie Riedel, John Rocco, Board of Directors
Rethinking Access Philosophy * Pages 9-36
Introduction, JohnW. Higgins, 9 /
Which First Amendment Are You
Talking About?, JohnW. Higgins, 11
/ First Come, First Served: Last One
Standing, Dirk Koning, 14 / Why
Centers Abandon First Come, First
Served, Pat Garlinghouse, 16 / Communications Bridges,
Eliot Margolies, 18 / A New Day for Public Access in San
Francisco, 19 / Re-thinking Access: Cultural Barriers to
Public Access Television, Bill Kirkpatrick, 20 / Integrating
Teaching and Educational Cable to
Enrich the Community, Campus &
Students, Rob Huesca, 24 /
Where in the World is U.S. PEG?, DeeDee
Halleck 27 / A Guide to Philosophical
Discussions of Community Media, JohnW.
Higgins, 29 / Resources for the Access
Practitioner/Philosopher, 33
On the cover and throughout this issue: "The Thinker" by sculptor Auguste Rodin
(1840-191 7); original conceived in 1880. Photo by John W. Higgins.
Articles in this issue of CMR are available online at
http://facidty.menlo.edu/~piiggins/acmwhitepaper. Selected, articles will
be available in the future at www.communitymediareview.org
As the journal of the Alliance for Community Media, Community Media Review shall support,
the Alliance mission by providing: a comprehensive overview of past, present and future issues
critical to the Alliance and its membership; vigorous and thoughtful debate on those issues;
and a venue for members and like-minded groups to present issues critical to the Alliance.
mm
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TARG III I 1 SION
FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Forecast for a Long, Hot Summer
BY BUNNIE RlEDEL
I was joking with someone the other
day, 1 said "It's going to be a long, hot sum-
mer!" My laughing about it was my way of
masking my anxiety over what we have
learned is coming our way. Senator Joseph
Lieberman is proposing four pieces of
broadband legislation, one of them aspires
to establish a national standard for manag-
ing rights of way. Senator John McCain is
proposing an "open access" piece of legis-
lation that will not really speak to the issue
of open access for all internet users, but
only in those markets where there is no
competition [DSL, wireless, etc.). We were
told us that on a scale of one to ten, one
being no open access and ten being com-
plete open access, this legislation will rank
at around iwo or three. The open access
debate aside, our early intelligence is that
ihe McCain legislation wilJ also challenge
o r destroy l ocal control over rights of way
management.
Then we have that pesky lawsuit in the
9 th Circuit over the recent FCC's cable
modem declaratory ruling, and comments
will be riled before you get this CMS at the
FCC regarding the Notice of Proposed Rule
Making the FCC opened when they hand-
ed down their cable modem ruling. A
"long, hot summer" indeed is what we are
facing.
Combine these elements with the
recent financial difficulty of the nation's
fifth largest cable system, Adelphia, and it's
enough to make you want to tear your hair
out. Throughout all of these shenanigans, I
keep asking myself "What is right?"
Maybe to find that answer, we need to
ask "What is wrong?" Following is my
response:
Tt is "wrong" to remove the control and
management of rights of way from local
communities. Not because local commu-
nities are ego-centric dolts engaged in turf
battles with the state and federal govern-
ment, but because it is you and me who
pay the property taxes, sales taxes, income
taxes, permit fees, recording fees, school
taxes, transportation taxes (and the list
goes on) to support those local communi-
ties. We are the ones who work from
January through May (and in some places
longer) just to pay our taxes and fees. We
/ know that much of this legislation
being introduced in the heat of the summer
is part of the game. The timing is so these
politicians can go hack to their constituents
in August and brag about what they have
proposed just in time for their re-electio n
bids in November. Political gaming aside,
it doesn't make it right and it certainly
doesn't make it excusable.
elect our local representatives, city or
county councils in the belief that they will
look out for our best local interests. The
state of Maryland, where I live, knows
absolutely nothing about the street I live
on, and I can guarantee you that the feder-
al government knows even less.
How presumptuous it is for Senator
Lieberman to suggest that my local gov-
ernment needs to be told how to manage
our rights of way!
It is "wrong" for Senator John McCain
to attempt to write a new Title into the
Telecommunications Act of 1996, a title
that will eliminate the local community's
ability to manage and control their rights
of way. From what 1 understand from the
meeting I had, the only thing that will be
achieved by this new Title will be full
employment for the lawyers. The suggest-
ed new Title will be in direct conflict with
the already existing Title 6 that governs
cable. There are only rwo solutions to this
conflict, eliminate Title 6 or go to court.
It was "wrong" for the FCC to classify
cable modem as an information service
thereby removing any and all regulation of
it and eliminating the local community's
ability to factor cable modem revenue into
the gross receipts of cable operators.
It was "wrong" to so fully deregulate
the cable industry that we now are faced
with a company run amok, one so over-
leveraged in debt that it may never find it's
way back. In phone calls I made to the
FCC there is a general response that it is
not their problem. Well, I too am a great
believer in the "free-market system," I too
am a great believer in entrepreneurs and
capitalistic creativity but I have certainly
noticed that banks and lending institu-
tions are quite willing to curb my spending
habits if they believe I am in over my head.
Why won't the rules of restraint that apply
to each and every one of us apply to these
corporations? We are all accountable for
our persona] behavior, is it too much to ask
that these companies be accountable for
their corporate behavior?
Some of you have heard rumors that I
can get pretty "fired up." It is true. I don't
like when politicians or corporate presi-
dents make decisions that adversely affect
people's lives or livelihoods. I get quite
"fired up." Sometimes there is a "right" and
there is a "wrong," and sometimes folks
need to be held to standards of decent con-
duct.
I know that much of this legislation
being introduced in the heat of the sum-
mer is part of the game. The timing is so
! these politicians can go back to their con-
stituents in August and brag about what
| they have proposed just in time for their re-
J election bids in November. Political gaming
! aside, it doesn't make it right and it certain-
I ly doesn't make it excusable.
1 hope that throughout this summer
you will join me in keeping our eyes on
Congress and the state houses, I hope that
you have bookmarked our Legislative
! Action Center and that you check it on a
weekly basis, and I hope that you will take
j time out of your busy schedules to write,
call, email and fax your representatives.
This will be one long, hot summer, but the
thing I know, deep in my heart is that we
have the power to make sure the "right"
things are done.
Bunnie Riedel is executive director of the
Alliance for Community Media, Contact her
at hriedel@alliancecm.org
(g«5
2001-2002 ALLIANCE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
John A. Rocco Chair, At Large
Executive Director, DATV
280 Leo St,
Dayton, OH 45404-2827
Voice: 937.223.5311 / Fax: 937.223,2345
Email: john@datv.org
Harry Haasch Vice Chair, At Large
Community Television Network
425 S. Main, Suite LL 114
Ann Arbor, M( 48104
Voice: 734.994.1833 / Fax: 734.994.8731
Email; hhaasch@ci.ann-arbor.tni. us
Kevin Reynolds Treasurer, At-Large
5520 North Bloomfieid Rd.
Canandaigua, NY 14424
Voice/fax: 585.394.3028
Email: reynoids@netacc.net
David Hawksworth Secretary/Midwest Chair
Executive Director
Community Access Television of Salina
41 OW. Ash St.
Salina, KS 67401
Voice: 785.823.2500 / Fax: 785.823.2599
Email: daveh@salnet.org
REGIONAL CHAIRS & REPRESENTATIVES
James C. Rossi, Jr. Mid-Atlantic Chair,
Chair of Chairs
C-NET
243 South Allen St., Suite 336
State College, PA 16801
Voice: 814.238.5031 / Fax: 814.238.5368
Email: jrossi@vicon.net
Tom Bishop Central States Chair
Norwood Community Television
PO Box 12366
Norwood, OH 45212
Voice: 513.396.7509 xlO / Fax: 513.396.5551
Email: bishop@nctonline.org
Debra Rogers Northeast Representative
Executive Director
Falmouth Community Television
310 Dillingham Ave.
Falmouth, MA 02540
Voice: 508.457.0800 / Fax: 508.457.1604
Email: deb@fctv.org
David Vogel Southeast Chair
CTV ofKnoxville
912 S. Gay St. #600, KnoxviUe, TN 37902
Voice: 865.215.8848 / Fax: 865.215.4337
Email: david@communiryknox.org
Patricia Garlinghouse Southwest Chair
Information Services Chair
Houston MediaSource
3900 Milam
Houston, TX 77006
Voice: 713.524,7700, xl3 / Fax: 713.524.3823
Email: patg@houston-mediasource.org
Robert Neal Northwest Chair
Bremerton Kitsap Access TV
7266 Tibardis Rd. NW
Bremerton, WA 383 1 1
Voice: 360.308.0139 / Fax: 360.308.0239
Email: bob.bkat@telebyte.ocom
mm
Steve Ranieri Western States Representative
Quote.. .Unquote, Inc.
POBox 26206
Albuquerque, NM 87125
Voice: 505.243.0027 / Fax 505-243-5833
sranieri@quote-unquote.org
AT-LARGE
Frank Clark Investment Chair
City Hall
801 Plum St., Room 28
Cincinnati, OH 45202
Voice: 513.352.5307 / Fax: 513.352.5347
Email: frank.clark@rcc.org
Paul Berg Organizational Development
Newton Communications Access Center, Inc.
PO Bfflt 610192
Newton, MA 02461-0192
Voice: 617.965.7200x1 7/ Fax: 617.965.5677
Email: paulb@newtv.org
Serena Mann
UMTV
0121 Tawes Fine Arts Bldg.
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
Voice: 301.405.3610 / Fax: 301.405.0496
Email: smann@deans.umd.edu
Karen Toering Grassroots Chair
Voice: 206,721.1296 / Fax: 206.437.4974
Email: ktoering@attbt.com
Ruth Mills
Whitewater Community Television
c/o Indiana University' East
2325 Chester Blvd.
Richmond, TN 47374
Voice: 765.973.8488 / Fax: 765.973.8489
Email: rumills@indiana.edu
Ric Hayes
Executive Director
Community Access Partners
of San Buenaventura
71 Day Rd., Ventura, CA 93003-2037
Voice: 805.654.6417 / Fax: 805.654.6421
Email: rhayes48@juno.com
Miguel Ortega
Access Tucson
124 East Broadway
Tucson, AZ 85701
Voice; 520.624,9833 I Fax: 520.792.2565
Em ail: miguel@accesstucson. org
Nantz Rickard Board/Personnel
Development
DCTV
901 Newton St. NE
Washington, DC 20017
Voice: 202.526.7007 / Fax: 202.526.6646
Email: dctv@starpower.net
DISCRETIONARY APPOINTEES
James Horwood Legal Affairs Appointee
Spiegel & McDiarmid
1350 New York Ave, NW, Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20005-4798
Voice: 202.879.4002 / Fax: 202.393,2866
Email: james.horwoodj@spiegelmcd .com
Richard Turner Equal Opportunity Chair
Communivision
47-746-4 Hui Kelu Street
Kane'ohe, HI 96744
Voice: 808. 265.5373 / Fax: 808.239,5962
Email: conmiunivision@hawaii.rr.com
Louis Gregory
PO Box 79771
Houston, TX 77279-9771
Voice: 713.906.1590 / Fax: 281.920.4331
Email: lwgreg@aol.com
'Talk Amongst Yourselves— 1
Information, resources, networking
and national office announcements
are available day or night. The Alliance
hosts two Ustsesvs to help you:
The Access Forum list is open to anyone inter-
ested in community access. To sign- up, inter-
ested persons should send a message to:
access-fomm-subscribe@lists.alliancean.org.
The Alliance Announce list is open only to
members of the /Alliance for Community Media.
Members should send a request to: alliance-
announce-subscribe@ lists.alliancecm.org.
Membership confirmation will be sent back to
the interested party. Once returned, it is sent to
the national office to confirm membership.
Once confirmed, the member will
be added to the list.
USEFUL CONTACTS
Alliance lor Community Media
666 1 lfh St. NW, Suite 740
Washington, DC 20001-4542
Telephone 202.393.2650 voice
202.393.2653 fax
Email: acm@alliancecm.org
www.alliancecm.org
Federal Communications Commission
The Portals
445 12th St. SW, Washington, DC 20024
202.418.0200 voice / 202.418.2812 fax
www.fcc.gov
Your Federal Legislators
The Honorable
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20510
or call 202.224.3121
on the web at
http://thomas.loc.gov
Do We Really Mean It?
FROM THE ALLIANCE CHAIR
Now we have a Republican House and a
Republican president, a thought which must
be unbearable to many, but it is reality,
so is it in PEG's best interest to perpetuate the
notion by many conservatives that access is
the stomping ground for the loony left, or is it
wiser for us to establish once and for all,
that access is for everyone?
by John Rocco
Thirty years ago, PEG access was a
dream, a vision, of those who believed
electronic communication should be
accessible to alternative voices not repre-
sented by traditional commercial media.
Our country was in economic and interna-
tional turmoil and many, especially the
younger generation, felt disenfranchised.
Commercial media didn't represent their
point of view and certainly did not allow
ordinary people to express their opinions
openly and freely. Of course there were the
Traditional American methods of stating a
position with protests, marches and stu-
dent sit-ins becoming regular fair on the
evening news, but still there was no public
forum for common everyday folks to com-
municate freely, openly, calmly and most
importantly, regularly, with their commu-
nities, it was a long tough battle for the
PEG pioneers who fought so diligently for
the channel space we all enjoy today and
for the ideal of everyone's right to have
access to electronic communication, but
recently, the amount of intolerance float-
ing around the access world has become
increasingly alarming.
The fact of the matter is, one either
believes in the freedom of speech, or one
does not. For years we have claimed that
access is a forum for "alternative voices",
but what does alternative mean? There is
no doubt that for many in the access
movement the word means a typically left
of center political viewpoint. This is totally
understandable given that the access
movement arose out of the social justice
movements of the late 1960s, but three
decades have passed and the world is a
vastly different place.
Challenges to the survival of PEG arise
regularly from Congress, the FCC and state
legislatures across the country. If PEG is to
survive, the access community must come
to grips with what access has become, and,
what it must become, in the 21 st century.
The word alternative in access parlance
should mean something totally different in
2002 than it did in 1972.
Is there any doubt that if one is a polit-
ical conservative living in Massachusetts,
you are the "alternative voice", or likewise
if you are a liberal in Mississippi or
Alabama? The point is a simple one, every-
one, that is everyone, has a right to have a
voice and to be heard. This is the beauty,
and the most important asset, of access,
How could anyone, of any political persua-
sion, intelligently attack the notion that in
America everyone of every conceivable
poli tical, cultural or religious ideology has
the right to express themselves and that
communities should have an electronic
meeting place for this to occur? It can't be
attacked because access represents the
most important freedom we have, the free-
dom of expression, that is of course unless
we allow it to be attacked because we, the
access community, don't really mean what
we say we mean.
Unfortunately, ideological intolerance
in the access universe seems to be quite
abundant, it wasn't too long ago that one
could be sitting in a workshop at the
Alliance national conference and heat an
access professional go practically apoplec-
tic because the National Right-to-Life
group had the audacity to want to run a
program on the local access channel. Do
we stand for what we say we stand for, or
don't we? This attitude is exactly the
ammunition needed by those who want to
eliminate PEG. We must be honest with
ourselves if we are to protect access from
destruction, and the truth is that in many
quarters, access is thought to be a play-
ground for the fringe elements of society,
especially those of the political left.
In 1994 many were stunned to wake up
one morning and find out that after 40
years, the Republican Party had regained
control of the U.S. House of
Representatives, something which even
the most loyal Republicans thought
impossible, but it has happened. Now we
have a Republican House and a
Republican president, a thought which must
be unbearable to many, but it is reality, so is
it in PEG's best interest to perpetuate the
notion by many conservatives that access is
the stomping ground for the loony left, or is
it wiser for us to establish once and for all,
that access is for everyone? This does not
mean that one needs to compromise one s
own particular principles, but it does mean
that we all must respect others rights to
have their own, and more importantly their
right to express them without ridicule.
Someday soon we will be challenged by
attempts to change federal legislation which
currently protects access, but there is one
potential event that will save us forever.
Picture a crowded Senate hearing room
where the merits of sustaining PEG chan-
nels are being debated. Testifying on the one
side are the cable operators who want to
stop paying franchise fees and stop giving
up channel capacity and on the other side is
the Alliance for Community Media trying to
protect everyone's right to electronic com-
munication, alongwith its allies; the
Democratic and Republican National
Committees, the National Abortion Rights
Action League and the National Right-to-
Life, the Sierta Club and the National Rifle
I Association, the Green Party and the
Libertarian Party, the Anti-Defamation
League and the Nation of Islam, the
National Organization for Women and the
Christian Coalition, and so on. Which team
do you think would win? You see access is
for everyone, everyone. We either stand for
what we say we stand for, or we don't. We
either survive or we dorit.
John Rocco is executive director of Dayton
[OH] Access Television [DATVj and chair of the
Alliance for Community Media, Contact him
at john@datv.org
mm
Fa c fl
Data management software
developed for the unique needs
of media access centers.
Facil is software designed just for media access
centers, addressing their wide range of needs
from contact information to equipment inventory,
from equipment and facility reservations to project
budgeting and reporting, from program library
to channel scheduling. Highly automated and fully
integrated, this program makes all the information
available throughout your organization to every
staff member in real time.
After more than ten years of development and
incorporating the input of PEG access centers
across the country, Facil has evolved into the
most comprehensive and effective solution to the
exceptional data management requirements of
a media access center. Facil is already serving over
90 organizations from coast to coast, recovering
the staff time previously lost to paperwork and
improving service levels.
Cabiecast Scheduling
4-fr-
Appointment Book
For more information or questions about Facil
call Access Tucson at 520.624.9833.
Visit our website at access.tucson.org/facil
and take the Facil on line tour. ^
"There is nothing so practical as a good theory."
er you've been involved in access for a while, it is easy to burn out on the day-to-day
"doing" of access. This presents an opportune moment to engage in the "processing" of
access and our personal contribution: Why do we do what we do? How might we do it
/ better? On what principles are our actions and policies based? Do the actions further the
principles or limit them? Which ideas have we found to be bogus, which ideas have been underval-
ued, based on our experiences?
From this interplay of action and intro-
spection emerges re-directed, re-vitalized
access practices and philosophies. The
process is effective for producers, staff, board
members, administrators, lobbyists, policy-
makers, activists — in short, for all the con-
stituencies that make community television
in the U.S. a vibrant, exhilarating practice.
In this issue, John Higgins explores tradi-
tional and critical perspectives of the First
Amendment, "free speech," and U.S. public
access. Dirk Koning, Pat Garlinghouse, and
Elliot Margolies address various aspects of the concept of "First Come, First Served." Bill
Kirpatrick challenges our notions of what is the "proper" form of political discourse; Rob Huesca
explores a collaboration between educational access and college student projects; and DeeDee
Halleck looks at the global context of PEG access. Many of the issues these authors address are
discussed at White Paper sessions at the Alliance's 2002 national conference in Houston.
In addition, we've included a list of some Resources and a Guide to Philosophical Discussions
of Community Media, outlining some of the basic concepts behind the discussions you might
encounter at the White Paper sessions and within these pages.
The thoughts of the practitioners/philosophers of U.S. access have long been represented "with-
in the pages of CMR, and before that, Community Television Review. The contents of this issue
address questions of relevance to both practitioners and scholars alike, to lead us to a better
understanding— and practice — of community-based, grassroots, electronic media.
— JohnW Higgins
John W. Higgins has been associated with commercial, non- commercial, and community
radio and televisiott since the 1970s. He is an associate professor at Menlo College inAtherton, California,
focusing research on "alternative" media, and an international consultant on communication issues
related to the appropriate "packaging" of information. He currently serves as vice president of the Board of
Directors of the San Francisco Community TV Corporation, which oversees the city's public access channel
and facilities. Dr. Higgins is a member of the editorial board of the Commun ity Media Review,
mm
First Amendment Center
programs present free
expression issues in fresh and
unique ways — from concerts
featuring John Kay and Tom
Paxton to interviews with social
activist Dick Gregory and
feminist author bell hooks.
Programs feature cutting-edge
First Amendment issues like
internet censorship, violent
video games, prayer in public
schools and the news media
in today's society. Information
and education — not just
talking heads.
And it's all made available free
of charge and in the format that
you need by the First
Amendment Center — part of
the non-profit non-partisan
foundation The Freedom Forum.
For more information about
how you can add these
valuable programs to your
station's news and information
lineup, contact:
Didi DeBolt
First Amendment Center
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Community
Which First Amendment
Are You Talking About?
Speech concerning public affairs is more than
self-expression, it is the essence of self-government.
- U.S. Supreme Court (Red Lion 1969)
by John W. Higgins
. community video emerged from decades of global
'experiences with activist participatory projects in elec-
tronic media, such as the tin miners' radio network in
Bolivia, community radio in the U.S., the Challenge for Change
program in Canada, and the traditions of radical documentary
film mound the world. Within this context, public access televi-
sion in the U.S. represents a unique achievement for community-
based media around the world: the institutionalization of a
process that provides people the opportunity to create video pro-
grams and air them on local cable channels; an oasis of "free
speech" and "free ideas" within a commercialized, corporate
global media desert.'
A foundation of public access philosophy is the "free speech"
provision interpreted from the First Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, which states: " Congress shall make no law . . .
abridging the freedom of speech or of the press ..." It seems
straightforward, no? Each of us has a right to speak; through pub-
lic access we have a personal right to express ourselves — at times,
to the extremes of "civil discourse."
Well, yes (following a one-dimensional, unproblematic
approach to "free speech"). And no (following long- standing tra-
ditional interpretations of the First Amendment and more recent
critical interpretations). In this article, I will first explore tradi-
tional interpretations of the First Amendment, then look at criti-
cal interpretations, and finally how both approaches are reflected
in discussions within the public access movement.
Traditional Interpretations of "Free Speech"
While the right of individual expression is guaranteed, tradi-
tional interpretations of the free speech provisions indicate that
the individual right to speak is not as important as the benefits
the collective (society) gains from an open discussion of ideas
and viewpoints^ So, the opportunity of each person to express an
opinion is not as important as the chance for every perspective
on an issue to be expressed...and to be heard.
Yes, the right to hear a variety of ideas and viewpoints is also
considered a part of free speech guarantees. The assumed bene-
fits to the larger society from the open discourse is the primary
basis for the free speech guarantees. To a lesser degree, there is
assumed to be a measure of personal growth for the individual
involved in personal expression, but in no way is this meant to
overshadow the greater social objectives of free speech.
Among traditional interpretations of the First Amendment,
Walter Lippmann reflects the majority position on freedom of
speech as a social rather than an individual need with his argu-
ment:
So, if this is the best that can be said for liberty of opinion,
that a man must tolerate his opponents because everyone has a
"right" to say what he pleases, then we shall End that liberty of
opinion is a luxury, safe only in pleasant times when men can be
tolerant because they are not deeply and vitally concerned, [sic]
Yet actually.. .there is a much stronger foundation for the
great constitutional right of freedom of speech... [W]e must pro-
tect the right of our opponents to speak because we must hear
what they have to say...[F]reedom of discussion improves our
own opinions- (1939, 186)
According to the traditional First Amendment scholars, "qual-
ity of speech" is more highly valued than a simple "quantity of
speech."
Traditional interpretations of the First Amendment reflect the
assumptions of liberal democratic philosophical thought that are
found within the U.S. Constitution, the drafters of which were
profoundly influenced by the 18th century philosophical move-
ment of the Enlightenment. Ruggles notes that the
Enlightenment was rooted
in "faith in the corrective of
reasoned debate, and the
attainability of rational,
consensual truth; the scien-
tific perfectibility of human
beings and human institu-
tions, especially through
democratic rule; [and] the
necessity of an informed
and tolerant populace to the
functioning of a democracy...
(Ruggles 1994, 141-142).
Traditional interpretations
of freedom of speech are mir-
rored in regulations and legisla-
tion guiding the U.S. electronic
media, including those regard-
Moving forward toward an
expanded understanding of
"free speech" and social
responsibility in the post-
September 11 world
involves a reassessment of
ideological perspectives.
ing public access cable television.
Although the basic tenets of public access reflect traditional
approaches to the First Amendment, the access canon is being
questioned from within the movement by a growing number of
critical analyses. These critiques mirror challenges by critical
scholars of traditional perspectives on free speech doctrine.
Critical Interpretations of the First Amendment
Many of the pluralist assumptions from the Enlightenment
are hotly contested within the realm of contemporary critical dis-
course. The critiques provide a vibrant challenge to mainstream
thought regarding the nature of power and the exercise of indi-
vidual free speech "rights." Critical scholars have questioned both
one-dimensional and traditional interpretations of free speech,
and the basic tenets upon which the liberal democratic tradition
is founded. 3 Particular attention has been directed to (1) the
nature of truth and the structure through which it emerges, (2)
the attributes of power, and (3) the characteristics of the individ-
«I1
ual's relationship with the collective.
Critiques often question
Enlightenment assumptions that a
single, definable, objective "Truth"
exists and that this truth can be
known by human beings. Beyond this
issue of truth is also a questioning of
process and the assumption that truth
is best revealed through a dialectic
...public access tele-
vision in the U.S.
represents. ..an oasis
of "free speech" and
"free ideas" within a
commercialized, cor-
porate global media
desert...
clash within the "marketplace of
■ : "'■ i<*eas." I or example, Frederick
Schatter reflects the skepticism of many critically-orienled First
Amendment scholars in his discussion of the "naive faith of the
Enlightenment" that truth prevails over falsehood when the two
compete in the "marketplace of ideas" (1985, 134). He notes that,
"Put quite starkly, truth does not always win out. ..The inherent
power of truth and reason was one of the faiths of the
Enlightenment, but more contemporary psychological and soci-
ological insights have confirmed the judgment of history that
truth is often the loser in its battle with falsity." (1 985, 1 42).
Structural arguments related to traditional liberal democratic
ideals of free speech argue that a widespread belief in the dialec-
tic emergence of truth privileges conflict models of communica-
tion that are challenged by contemporary thought in fields such
as feminist scholarship (Dervin, et al 1993, 6). Conflict models are
at the heart of pluralist assumptions of the nature of power,
where power (when it is acknowledged) is traditionally envisaged
as being shared equally by individuals, recognizable in the form
of conflict, operating within public view, and working for the
common good. In contrast, critiques of such pluralist precepts
describe a process where power more often works covertly for
specialized interests and is inequitably distributed within
society.*
In addition to questions of truth and the nature of power, lib-
eral democratic assumptions of individualism — where the indi-
vidual is conceived as set against society, thus challenging social
domination — are also challenged by critical scholars. Critical
interpretations argue that this dichotomy is false; individuals and
society cannot be divorced from one another, since each depends
upon the other for identity and growth.
The critical project, then, questions liberal democratic
assumptions of truth, the structure through which truth emerges,
the nature of power, and the individual/collective dichotomy. In
various analyses, critical scholars have espoused a more authen-
tic democratic society, rooted in a more robust understanding of
the nature of human beings and the social formations they con-
struct.
Public Access: From "More Speech" to "Better Speech"
Early critical perspectives addressing the public access vision
of empowerment and related community television assumptions
in general typically came from outside the U.S. alternative video
arena (Higgins 1999). Within the M.S. movement, analyses of pub-
lic access as a means of promoting democratic communications
typically have drawn from unproblematic interpretations of the
First Amendment, emphasizing individual "rights" to speak and
"more speech." In the late 1970s early 1980s The level of analyses
within the public access movement began shifting to reflect long-
standing traditional interpretations of the First Amendment,
emphasizing a desire for quality of speech over mere quantity
and the needs of the society over those of the individual.
12«
Two announcers from Bolivian tin miner's
union radio station, Radio Nacional de
Huanuni, conduct the morning news program.
For example, the
previous discussion of
the First Amendment,
which visualizes free
speech as a means of
promoting public dis-
course rather than as a
vehicle for personal
expression, is reflected
in this statement by
Andrew Blau, former
chair of the National
Federation of Local
Cable Programmers
(now the Alliance for Community Media) :
Our experience of public access to cable over the past two
decades suggests that access may have nothing to do with
democracy — nothing, that is, until the people who provide and
use access connect the two. We can no longer simply assume that
access to media tools and channels is enough...
[I]f we take seriously this link between the right to speak
with and hear from others and the daily practice of democracy,
then we ought to organize our access tools to foster a kind of par-
ticipation that enables people to take part in the decisions affect-
ing their community. In this sense, simply talking a lot means lit-
tle. (Blau 1992, 22)
This challenge to the established public access assumption
that many voices equal diversity reflects Eippmann's arguments
described previously. Until the 1980s, such a challenge was also
nearly heretical within public access circles.
A further evolution in access philosophy in the mid-1980s
included critical perspectives in the analyses of public access and
access's role in the active practice of public discourse. 5 This
included a more fully developed conceptualization of the work-
ings of power that challenged the traditional access notion of
"first come, first served" with the need for actively recruiting tra-
ditionally disenfranchised groups (Higgins 2001). The critiques
from within public access, developed in a laboratory of daily
practice, represent positive steps to move beyond simple
assumptions of democracy and power, toward a more integrated
view of access within a complex societal framework. For example,
Aufderbeide (1992, 2000) andDevine (1992a, 1992b, 2001) have
consistently raised critical themes within their work related to
community television, placing public access within discussions
of Habermas' framework of the public sphere (1962/1989).
Aufderheide identifies access channels as "electronic public
spaces" that "strengthen the public sphere" (1992, 59) and should
not be considered within traditional media measurements such
as audience numbers (2000). Devine (1992b) posits that public
access provides a space for public
debate within the public sphere and
argues that public access is best
viewed within a notion of process
rather than product. Devine further
describes access as a site of cultural
activism: where traditional power
relationships are challenged and
where human agency is cultivated
as people are allowed to come to
voice (1992b, 22-23), "transforming
consumers into public
the individual right
to speak is not as
important as the
benefits the collec-
tive (society) gains
from an open discus-
sion of ideas and
viewpoints.
speakers/participants, and moving them from passive into active
roles of engagement in the civic life of their community" (Devine
2001, 37). The manner in which public access allows persons to
speak within the context of the public discussion of issues relates
to both traditional interpretations of the necessity of public dis-
course and to critical interpretations of power.
Raising the Philosophical Bar
The discourse continues within the access movement: wit-
ness George Stoney's criticism of vanity-based programmers
(Stoney 2001) and Bill Kirkpatrick's arguments in this issue in
favor of a recognition of the cultural aspects of media forms and
resistance {CMR Summer 2002). Stoney is arguing from the tradi-
tionalist perspective of the social good of free speech; Kirkpatrick
argues from a critical perspective that views culture as a form of
political speech that may be more than the individual self-
expression it seems at face value. Or note the discussion within
these pages of the controversies involved with the long-time
access philosophy of "First Come, First Served." Or the spirited,
wide-ranging discussion of these issues at White Paper sessions
at the Alliance national conferences over the past 20 years.
Such discussions constantly raise the philosophical bar in the
real-life social laboratory that is public access, testing commonly-
held notions of free speech as experienced by everyday philoso-
pher/practitioners, and moving us on to a greater understanding
of the possibilities of democratic society.
The ripple effect of new ideas within access are sometimes
slow to spread to a wider audience within the movement. A num-
ber of people involved in access — administrators, staff, produc-
ers, board members — continue to hold tightly to the one-dimen-
sional "individual right" notion of free speech over the concept of
"social good." In these circles, traditional interpretations of free
speech have not yet begun to root, let alone critical perspectives
on power and free speech. This mainstream approach serves a
purpose, when considered as but one among several perspectives
on free speech, to be drawn upon as necessary.
The "individual right" concept is easy to grasp and it doesn't
need definition or discussion, since it is plugged into our most
uncritical notions of American citizenship. In addition, "individ-
ual right" helps us negotiate the deep ideological differences
between seemingly alien approaches to the world that we find at
the access facility.
In a study of volunteer producers I conducted in the mid
1 990s, 6 Noreen, a European American community organizer
involved in public access for six years, described the varying ide-
ological camps at her access facility:
"Well. .there's two groups. There's the religious right down
there and there's people like me down there and then there's the
ministers who don't necessarily like women ami you get all these
different groups of people.. ..
"...[Tjhen you get people there who wanted to do the Klan
show I th ink last year or the year before and you get people in
there and when 1 mentioned that when you are a camera person
you are like a fly on the wall and J see two ministers talking to
each other and they are saying thai women shouldn't he ministers.
That women shouldn't be here and women shouldn't be here...."
Noreen provides insights to the potential for conflict that
emerge as competing groups interact within the public access
facility, particularly within facilities with volunteer programs that
encourage people to work as crew on other producers' produc-
tions.
1 found that producers devised a variety of methods to deal
with the ideological tensions they encountered at the facility.
Primary among these strategies was evoking the dogma of free-
dom of expression, related to the individual "right" to speech,
that allowed producers to endure ideological differences that
otherwise might be personally intolerable. Internal conflict was
resolved in part by resorting to someone's "right" of individual
expression: "they should be able to
do that." Producers often referred to An overemphasis
this right of expression, which on individual rights
seemed to be a method of coping eclipses the more
with ideals that conflicted with their . . . . . -
important goals or
own. Tom, an Alrican-American bus . . ,
,„ . , , free speech for the
driver and Baptist minister to a small
congregation who had produced 400 good of the so*'****
programs and volunteered on 300
others over his eight years with access, provided an example:
."..like I said, I don't agree with everything that they do and
ihey probably don't agree with everything I do. Like I said, that's
what makes public access to me. We don't agree on every thing but
we are allowed to put forth our rights to say what we have the
privilege of doing through public access. I believe, like I said, this
is — the last soapbox that we have is public access...."
Tom captured a sense of the delicate interlacing of "my
rights" and "your rights" at play within the public access facility,
and the subtle dance between seemingly conflicting rights.
In addition to drawing on basic notions of individual rights,
producers in the study negotiated differences by refusing to
work as crew members with producers with whom they had
serious ideological differences. But ideological differences were
handled differently than personal differences. Tom's framing of
free speech "rights" also allowed him to separate ideological dif-
ferences from the human being with a problem he encountered
at the facility:
"... And when they (volunteers} come on I just try to share with
them, and now there are certain shows or programs that I won't
work on. Anything that's contrary to Christ, I'm not gonna work
on it. I mean it's just that everybody knows that and I've helped a
man put hh starter up. He was a program — his program was not
with Christ but I helped him put his starter on. I ain't gonna help
him with his program though [laughingj. But his choke broke
down and I helped him with his starter [laughing!. Crawled right
up under it and helped him with it, but I'm not gonna help him
with his program."
As indicated by the study, an uncritical notion of free speech
framed simply within a context of "individual rights" does pro-
vide a measure of tolerance for people as they encounter unfa-
miliar people and ideas. While recognizing the significance of
these basic notions, access should actively cultivate an under-
standing of and appreciation for the wider aspects of First
Amendment ideology— such as the traditionalist notion of
"social responsibility" — among producers, staff, board members,
and the community.
Reassessing the Access Mission
An overemphasis on individual rights eclipses the more
important goals of free speech for the good of the society. Within
this goal of social responsibility, producers of "vanity," "narcissis-
tic," or "self-absorbed" programming might turn their attention
See Which First Amendment - page 15
ffi13
First Come, First Served: Last One Standing
Perpetuating the Open Marketplace of Ideas
by Dirk Koning
,j?/Jwement on the flickering black and white security
/'///monitor catches my eye. It's ten minutes before the cen-
t.,- r~£y\m opens and there stands Ben again outside the door.
This retired Air Force man greets us every morning at the media
center the second we unlock the doors. He has time, money,
interest, a supportive family, literacy skills and transportation.
And our center is his "home away from home." Ben benefits
extraordinarily from our "First Come, First Served" policy.
April on the other hand is a single mother of two whose first
language is Spanish. She lives on the south side of town and
works two jobs. She came to our monthly orientation once and
loved the idea of producing TV While our orientation is free, it
cost her 20 bucks for a sitter to watch her daughters. She had to
hustle up a ride home when the class went longer than the last
bus of the night. Our English only orientation was tough for her
to follow. We haven't seen April since.
First Come, First Served — Biased
Many community media and community tech centers are
struggling with the long-practiced policy of "First Come, First
Served." First Come, First Served is inherently biased. On the
other hand, First Come, First Served (FCFS) is one of the best
Constitutional defenses we have to validate PEG access channels.
If the use of the channel is too narrowly defined or prejudiced
toward a specific group or entity, the courts may very well dismiss
the governmental interest in 'taking' the channel for the public
good, and let the cable company have it back for commercial
gain.
In FCC v. Midwest Video Corp. (571 F.2d 1025 8th dr. 1978) the
court suggested that access requirements might violate the First
and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The courts have
been expanding First Amendment protection for commercial
speech day by day. Cable company attorneys argue that cabie is a
"telepublisher" and should have similar First Amendment rights
as newspapers. For instance, the government can't make a news-
paper give a free blank page of the paper to citizens to fill with
copy and then make the newspaper deliver that message along
with their own.
The last lines of the Fifth Amendment state, "nor be deprived
of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall
private property be taken for public use, without just compensa-
tion." Here the cable operators argue that if the government
interest in depriving them of their prop erly i.e. "taking" PEG
channels can be substantiated, then we must pay for the chan-
nels taken. (Similar to your land being taken for the government
interest of a super highway, the government may take the land
but must compensate you at market rates).
Counter Arguments
We argue in the first case that they are not speakers in the
sense of a newspaper. Cable television companies are essentially
giant routers that pull distant signals in and package them for
resale locally. Regarding the second argument, courts have sup-
ported the notion that communities can trade the value of the
common rights-of-way for franchise fees and channel space. In
other words, if you the cable company want access to our rights-
of-way to deliver channels, we the community who owns that
property want access to a sliver of your bandwidth to deli ver our
messages — PEG channels.
If we abandon First Come, First Served practices and our
channels and/or facilities become 'clubs' for use by those we
favor, our Constitutional defense for these channels and faculties
may unravel. We must pro-
vide access to facilities and
channels for the common
good. We must provide
access in a non- discrimina-
tory fashion, we must pro-
vide access in a fair and
equitable fashion. Even
time, place and manner
restrictions must be content
neutral. We must continue
to provide channels and facili-
ties to perpetuate the open mar-
ketplace of ideas. The best anal-
og} 1 may be a speaker in a public
forum. If someone wants to
reserve the city plaza for a rally,
the city may allow them to use
the plaza on a First Come, First Served basis. The city may not ask
to see what speeches will be delivered at the rally. The city may
not schedule a group they don't like for really bad rally times
(3:00 a.m.). The city has to provide the space for them to speak,
but the city doesn't have to provide the amplification system.
Reconciling First Come, First Served
Can you say quandary? How do we reconcile these positions?
Should we? Can we distinguish between our facilities/equipment
access and channel access? If we stand on principle do we risk
cutting off our nose to spite our face? Is it worth it to stand on
principle and fall off the funding wagon? I low slippery is the
slope of editorial discretion? Are the channels worth saving if they
aren't First Come, First Served? Is it really about who arrives first
or about insuring non-discriminatory practices?
I know when it comes to channel programming, few of us
truly practice FCFS. We often have regular series with fixed time
slots. We program for convenience and logical flow for the audi-
ence. When it comes to facility and equipment access we proba-
bly do better on a pure FCFS model. Many centers don't allow
folks to monopolize the equipment.
Obviously, the desire for a First Come, First Served policy
stems from a scarcity premise. We assume there will be more
people attempting to access our services than we can accommo-
date. In an attempt to be fair, we determine that those "showing
up first" will receive first access to a scarce commodity.
"'First Come, First Served' is
inherently biased. On the
other hand, First Come, First
Served' is one of the best
Constitutional defenses we
have for PEG access channel
validation."
Additionally, we feel the best way to avoid accusations of
discrimination or favoritism can be achieved by applying
FCFS policies.
OTHER MODELS
If our main goal is to divvy up scarce resources (chan-
nel time and equipment) in a non-discriminatory fash-
ion, what other models might we follow?
Benevolent Dictator: Some one or some group with
the alleged interest of the "common good" at heart will
attempt to distribute access to insure fairness on all lev-
els. Yikes!
Lucky Lottery: Instead of rewarding those who arrive
first with access, wait until all those wanting access arrive
and then draw names from a fish bowl to see who gets
access to what, when. Logistical nightmare?
Build It and Take It To Them: A twist to the build it
and they will come idea, load up a van full of voice, video
and data equipment and drive into needy neighborhoods
on a schedule like a bookmobile and provide training and
production access where 'they' are. Could be expensive.
U of M Admissions Policy: Based on an agreed upon
history of unfair access, scarce resources (admission to
law school) are mostly allocated on merit with special
consideration afforded those who may be from a race or
class that has been discriminated against in the past.
Awaiting Supreme Court Decision,
Techno-Fix: Provide many places for people to "first
come" for services and stick with the same policy. Web
based registration for channel time, equipment and class-
es with Internet access computers broadly distributed.
Channel-Facility Dichotomy: Maybe we honor the
FCFS approach regarding channel access and we decide
to serve the "neediest" folks regarding equipment and
facilities. We have people apply for classes and equipment
and we totally discriminate toward those who are most
deserving of access based on lack of income and power.
You be the judge, how many Mercedes do you sec parked
in front of the Food Bank.
Join the Discussion
These suggested solutions are by no means exhaus-
tive. This article is intended to spur the discussion of this
dicey question. Those of you attending the Alliance for
Community Media conference in Houston, Texas in July
of 2002 may want to attend the "White Paper" discussion
to pickup where these comments leave off.
Under all circumstances keep one motive pure, Power
to the People!
Dirk Koning is the founding director of the Community
Media Center in Grand Rapids Michigan. He chairs the edito-
rial board of Community Media Review and is a founder and
current president of the Alliance for Communications
Democracy. He travels and speaks extensively on social appli-
cations of media. Contact him at dirk@grcmc.org.
This article will be presented in a White Paper session at
the 2002 national conference of the Alliance for Community
Media in Houston.
Which First Amendment
continued from page 13
helping other, yet-unheard voices express their views.
Within some access communities, there has been an increased
recognition of the need for greater discipline and more responsibil-
ity on the part of access participants. This latter perspective seems
to be a consideration of some access managers who have encoun-
tered difficulties with producers pushing the limits of the individ-
ual right to speech as applied to public access — including "hate
speech" and graphic pornographic and/or exceedingly violent pro-
gramming.fi These leaders have attempted to cultivate an atmos-
phere where The emphasis is on assisting others, including previ-
ously silenced voices, to "speak" and be heard, rather than exercis-
ing one's own "rights" to expression.
While the U.S. community television movement as a whole has
begun to reflect more complex posi tions regarding notions of "free
speech," there is no reason to believe that such perspectives will be
considered or embraced by access staff and community partici-
pants any more rapidly than by the U.S. general popuiation.s
Community television leaders might move the discourse forward
with high profile discussions of the access mission and the nature
of democracy; such a progressive development would be in keep-
ing with the framework of "access as process" espoused by Devine
(1992b), Higgins (1999), and Tohnson (1994), emphasizing access's
ability to encourage participants to an expanding involvement in
the social sphere.
Moving forward tow T ard an expanded understanding of "free
speech" and social responsibility in the post-September 11 world
involves a reassessment of ideological perspectives — by talking at
every opportunity about die basic ideas of the access mission; the
many meanings of the term "free speech"; the need for self-disci-
pline and the sharing of resources, knowledge, and skills to create a
true public discourse on our community television channels.
Such an endeavor would allow public access, as an institution-
alized form of community media in the U.S., to remain as a vibrant
living laboratory to die world, contributing an enhanced under-
standing of the nature of "free speech," the manner in which the
concept works in everyday practice, and its importance to the
lifeblood of a democratic society.
Notes
1 This article is drawn from the chapter, "Living Tolerance: U.S. Public
Access Producers and the Practices of 'Free Speech,' in Community
Media: International Perspectives. Ed. Linda Fuller. In press. 2002.
z Traditional approaches to the First Amendment are represented by
Lippmann (1939), Meiklejohn (1948), Mill (1859/1993), and Ruggles
994).
3 Critical interpretations of the First Amendment and free speech are
represented by Dervin and Clark (1993); Downing (1999); Ruggles
(1994); Schauer (1985); and Streeter (1990).
i Drawn from Lukes (1974) Good (1989), and Gramsci (1946/1989)
5 See Higgins (2001).
6 For details sec Higgins (1999, 2002).
' On the San.Francisco public access channel, a few community pro-
cers exhibit die extremes to which the notion of free speech as an
See Which First Amendment - page 35
@«15
Why Centers Abandon First-Come, First- Served
by Pat Garlinghouse
/*"7"jrfrsi Come, First Served" (FCFS) is a
■^jpTrnanagement strategy with the
K..S goal of providing the opportunity
for fair access, but "FCFS" may not neces-
sarily be the best tool. Just because people
have the proximity and leisure time to
stand in line and fill up the queue doesn't
give them the right to monopolize the
channel. Access managers may, and often
do, find that the demographics of their
users do not reflect the demographics of
their service area — an indicator that equal
access does not exist. The desired result is
equitable service. Logic supports an
access manager's need to engage in out-
reach to ensure that diverse communities
gain access. Equal access exists only when
everyone has an equal opportunity for
access. "FCFS" just lets the first one who
gets to the service use it. So much has
been made of "FCFS" that it has taken on
a divine connotation but the invariable
issue is control of content not control of
order,
PEG and the First Amendment
Public, Educational and Government
(PEG) Access struggles to gain identity
throughout the country. Education access
and generally government access get
bandwidth; public access gets franchise
funding in exchange for the use of public
property. The First Amendment guaran-
tees that all speech will be heard on public
access, but the First Amendment does not
say anything about the order of that
speech.
Valuable programming, programming
that can capture the imagination and sup-
port for access from the public, requires
that the public knows what kind of con-
tent to look for and to make decisions
about what they want to watch. Gaining
public support does not require content
decisions but requires scheduling deci-
sions. If managers want to give the public
an inkling about the programming, then
FCFS is not the preferred method. FCFS
robs the public of choice — the choice of
knowing, for example, what to watch in
advance or when to tape a program.
Someone must make decisions in order to
give the public a choice.
Access managers have a responsibility
to users, viewers and the non-viewing
IMS
The essence of one's public access
operation must remain steadfast to
the First Amendment. The day-to-day
operation, in order for the service to
remain relevant to community needs,
may dictate that many services are
not well served by strict FCFS man-
agement.
public alike. Each constituent's needs
should be met. Each participant's rights
should hold the same relevant weight. No
one group should be able to exert pres-
sure on management for a particular pro-
gramming philosophy. Making decisions
is in the best interest of the users, viewers
and the public, It's good management to
let people know what's happening.
Accordingly, the best way to protect and
justify management decisions is to dis-
seminate adequate and clear information
about programming policies and proce-
dures. People feel in control when they
know the rules.
FCFS as a Management Tool
Traditionally FCFS was used by man-
agers to avoid having to justify their pro-
gramming decisions fearing criticism
from the public. Deciding on a fair sched-
uling scheme is difficult but critical to
serve the public. FCFS does not provide
equitable access for those who cannot
compete equally. FCFS provides a substi-
tute for programming decisions.
Someone has to make decisions because
events come up that can't be moved or
changed: late breaking news and time
sensitive programming, for example, so
any manager will have to justify decisions
that cannot be decided by lottery, the
fastest or easiest method, or by the person
with the most information or advantage.
Good management decisions cannot be
made if slots are given at random. Nor
should management decisions be abdicat-
ed in deference to an imagined compo-
nent of First Amendment rights. FCFS
does not enhance First Amendment rights
but it does take away choice from, the
viewers. Once the distinction is clear, any
manager can schedule programming on
the access channel in the best interest of
the public. The general public needs to
know that access is responsible and deliv-
ering the best possible service.
The Public Access Mission
Educational and Government access
have very distinct and limited missions.
Public access does not. Public access is
perceived as robbing valuable funding, for
example, from libraries, recreation centers
or fire departments. Such an assumption
forces criticism and scrutiny on public
access funding that Educational and
Government access don't have. PEG
access often appears as a threat to the
local community, particularly Public
access — the most likely to engage in a
form of "FCFS." In Public access all speech
can be heard as long as it is protected by
the First Amendment. Providing free
speech need not be order- specific. Any
number of operational scenarios make the
management of video production on a
strict FCFS basis difficult.
If one group of community organiza-
tions, for example, floods half of an opera-
tion with programs, is the access service
still serving the entire public? Did all of
the public have the same opportunity to
produce an equal volume of shows for the
channel? Is that service being delivered to
the community in an equitable manner?
How then does one allocate access to the
channels in an equitable manner that also
meets the needs of the general communi-
ty? The examples below come from organ-
izations throughout the country that face
the FCFS dilemma head-on.
Special Insight
Take die case of a small public access
operation with just one channel, less than
a one million- dollar budget (no capital or
facility support), and a public to serve of
three million. Special interest groups dis-
cover this public access opportunity and
promptly consume the resources to crank
out vast numbers of programs.
Series renewal time arrives and "all-
knowing" producers prepare to devour
limited space on the channel. The doors
open at 9:00 a.m. and 50 producers fall
through the doors. Even a lottery couldn't
solve this one. Series must be allocated by
theme or block scheduling which falls out-
side the parameters of FCFS. Access must
deliver equitable services.
Scheduling Issues
Some centers want to showcase pro-
gramming around holidays or specific
themes like InternationalWomen's Day, or
Black History Month. A producer might
want to showcase some of her work and
show a "block" of several programs. This is
often a great way to reward producers for
the long process of production or a videog-
rapher who gains local notoriety. As long as
all producers have the opportunity for pro-
gram showcasing, treatment is equitable.
Another case of special scheduling con-
cerns the programming of those who might
test First Amendment limits: violence, hate,
sexually explicit material, etc. You know the
story. Special time allocations to protect
minors need to be in place.
Audience Identity
Producers, or users, aside, the public
scrambles for some identification with
their public access channel They might
want to know when they can see programs
in their native language. Where are the pro-
grams for their children after school? They
"never know when anything is on," or they
want to complain to city council that
"nothing on the public access channel is
worth watching." A lack of concise infor-
mation produces fragmented audiences.
Viewers need program predictability and
consistency. Thematic scheduling provides
the public predictability and consistency
while viewing the channel and provides
equitable service delivery.
Forming Partnerships
In the recent "Audience" issue of the
CMR, Barbara Popovic of CAN TV in
Chicago, Illinois describes instances where
community-based organizations form
partnerships with access to build new
audiences and new constituencies. This
kind of relationship goes beyond the FCFS
model. Partnerships bring groups of new
audiences to the access channel.
If access centers must provide "every-
one in the community" access to the chan-
nel, sometimes that means seeking out
those who are not yet represented on the
channel. Gaining viewers requires some
initial assistance or collaboration with
community groups and. falls outside of the
parameters of FCFS, but consistent with
equitable delivery of services.
Special Programs
Houston MediaSource provides an
extensive apprenticeship program, funded
by the Texas Commission on the Arts, that
allows young videographers the opportuni-
ty to practice their video skills by teaching
in local schools, assisting in ongoing pro-
grams that arc short-staffed, or helping to
develop new programs — such as an intern
who is deaf teaching classes in captioning
to hearing producers. Some interns now
teach video classes in Spanish and
Chinese.
When centers become "production
services," often in search of needed funds,
they should remain true to their access
First Amendment mission. Stall can give
assistance but not priority treatment. All
equipment, for example, should come
from the same pool that individual produc-
ers use. Although a new producer receives
production assistance, the submission of a
program should be consistent with general
programming policy across the board.
Content Neutral Programming
Management
The real issue in examining the equi-
table delivery of programming is that of
content-neutrality and not that of program
management: never abandon the concept
of content-neutral programming. Having
the right to air your show without prior
restraint is not the same thing as having
the absolute right to put your show on the
channel when you want or in a particular
order. The courts, in essence, have often
said that it's not about what's easy, it's
about what's right. The abandonment of
FCFS services, even partially, can easily be
viewed in conflict with the First
Amendment. Any deviation should be
carefully planned and monitored. The
essence of one's public access operation
must remain steadfast to the First
Amendment. The day-to-day operation, in
order for the service to remain relevant to
community needs, may dictate that many
services are not well served by strict FCFS
management.
Pat Gariinghouse is the Executive Director
of Houston Media Source. Email:
patg('PHouston-mediasource.org.
This article will be presented in a White
Paper session at the 2002 national conference
of the Alliance for Community Media in
Houston, Texas.
Revitalizing Access
Philosophy
White Paper Sessions Schedule, 2002
Alliance national conference. Several
presentations build on articles in this
issue of the Community Media Review.
These sessions explore and challenge
long-held beliefs in access.
Thursday morning, July 1 1
White Paper Session #1: White Paper
Presentation — This White Paper session
addresses philosophical or self- reflexive
aspect of access as we look to the future.
Ideas are presented and then open for
discussion by session participants.
"First Come, First Served: Last One
Standing" — Dirk Koning, Community
Media Center, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Thursday afternoon, July fl
White Paper Session #2: "Philosophical
Issues, Policy Implications"— This session
continues discussion from the first White
Paper session, exploring basic tenets of
access philosophy.
"First Come, First Served: An Outmoded
Management Strategy?"— Pat Gariing-
house, Houston MediaSource and Paul
Congo, Access Monterey Peninsula
(California)
"Threats to Public Access" — Dee Dee
Halleck, University of California at San
Diego
Friday morning, July 12
White Paper Session #3: "Building
Collaborations: Academia And Access"
This White Paper session discusses
recent scholarly research related to
access, and explores collaborations
between access and academia.
"Integrating Teaching and Educational
Cable"— Robert Huesca, Trinity
University, San Antonio Texas
"Virtual Public Access: Has the Internet
Eliminated the Need for Public Access
Television?'' — Laura R. hinder, University
of North Carolina at Greensboro
"Community and Localism in American
Though t and Media Policy"
— Bill Kirkpatrick, University of
Wisconsin at Madison
"Conflict: the First Amendment,
Individual Rights, and Public Access"—
John W. Higgins, Menlo College, Atherton
California
litre
Communication Bridges
Civic Communication Requires Encouragement and Support
by Elliot Margolies
i .very year, fewer Americans put time into any civic, volun-
/ tary activity, let alone the extra demands and challenges
\ •** inherent in public communication.' Public communica-
tion is done on an intimidating stage where the communicator is
evaluated by others. It usually requires that a communicator
carve out precious time to prepare his or her letter to the editor,
art piece, or statement before city council; and at most public
access TV studios, it also requires recruiting and motivating a
team of volunteer crew to help produce a program. It's no wonder
that we tend to see the same faces on civic stages. Civic commu-
nication requires encouragement and support in our privatized
milieu.
Community Media Centers: Future Ghost Towns?
Community Media Centers could become ghost towns or
Wayne's World Havens, if they serve only the groups who are
"ready to go" with enough people-power and time to undergo
video training and produce a program series. The "If-you-build-
it,-they-wiIl-come" philosophy might work well for a multiplex
theatre, but a community media center must go way beyond
hanging out a shingle to cultivate and nourish a vibrant and rep-
resentative electronic town square. The shrewd community
media center will regularly redesign and tweak its policies, activi-
ties, job roles, and services to insure diverse participation. We
must be like bold, experimental chefs in order to develop a com-
munity resource for communications that goes beyond mere
recreation. In the 70s, the "first come, first served" philosophy
reflected our optimism and our commitment to the First
Amendment. But in the world we live in, that credo is often at
odds with the goal of community building and creating a venue
that reflects local diversity and civic participation.
At our media center in Palo Alto, California, we are proud of
the plenthude of programs produced in our studio each year, but
simultaneously frustrated by the hurdles that inhibit high pro-
duclion value for those who do participate and that keep many
from participating at all. The challenge of producing a studio TV
series— getting guests, some amount of scripting and set design-
ing, recruiting a crew, getting production training, and publiciz-
ing the show is a very tall order. For every group that becomes an
ongoing community TV producer, there are dozens who will
never try, and others who consistently fail. Over the years, for
example, we have seen three different Polynesian groups try to
create a series — only to stumble over the logistical challenges
including time, crew, and transportation. Consequently the
Tongan and Samoan community has rarely been reflected on our
channels.
Alternative Vehicles for 'Bringing People to Voice'
Over the years we have implemented a number of "fixes" to
make the process more accessible and manageable for would-be
communicators. We've also tried to develop alternative vehicles
for bringing people to voice including staff productions and a
community forum on the internet using a conferencing software.
We have not discovered any "magic pills" — new services or job
descriptions that immediately result in an outpouring of com-
munity communications — but we know we have brought many
people to the community stage that would not otherwise have
made it, Ideally, we would institutionalize all the "fixes" into our
ongoing services, but in our situation, limited resources dictate
that we juggle such measures in and out. Here is a list, variations
of which will be familiar to many other centers:
Supporting Producers
▲ Establish a paid or unpaid in-house studio crew to enable
many different community groups to utilize the "turnkey" studio.
A Assign a staff-person as "production coordinator" to help a
new producing group get on its feet for a period of time.
Coordinator actually recruits crew, develops a set, and helps with
publicity.
A Organize a coalition
of like-minded community
groups to produce a series
together.
A Establish an "auto
pilot studio" enabling pro-
ducers to speai out using a
simple technical setup — no
crew required.
A "Dr. Studio"— a staff
person who is available to pro-
ducers for meetings regarding
production value or for helping
locate new crew members.
A Classes for producers for
"spicing up" talk shows.
Staff Productions
A Initiate staff-produced series that create a venue for com-
munity groups who wish to use — but not produce TV.
A Initiate community forums when issues erupt. Set up can-
didate forums before every election. (We do this in partnership
with a local newspaper.)
A Assign staff videographers to cover community issues
forums and events.
Why We Do It
Many access centers would not touch staff productions with
a 10-foot pole. There's the concern that valuable access dollars
and resources would be diverted to staff pursuits. Also, it may
seem presumptuous for the staff to assume it knows what pro-
gramming the community needs, not to mention the fact that a
staff production filters community expression through its choice
of hosts and guests. We share those concerns at the Media
Center, but we balance them against other concerns.
A We want to bring many different groups and individuals to
voice.
A We want the channels to be a relevant citizen resource as
issues erupt.
A We see a studio that is used in large part by the same pro-
ducers for years at a time, while scores of other community
...a community media center
must go way beyond hanging
out a shingle, to cultivate and
nourish a vibrant and repre-
sentative electronic town
square.
groups do not participate.
The programs we produce are designed to feature diverse
community voices and generate a community-focused, public
forum. For example, we do not produce music videos, or even
documentaries where points of view are too limited and produc-
tion dollars are too many. We take measures to mitigate the
impact of staff production on resources available to public access
producers.
Staff produced series include:
▲ An arts program that highlights a different artist or arts
group each time
A A local issttes program featuring people recently in the
news
A A local new^s show where all the reporters are from local
organizations, clubs, neighborhood associations, etc.
A Load sports.
Election forums
The news show alone, in its inaugural year, has brought in 20
new organizations that had not produced programs before. These
groups produce stories on a rotating basis while Media Center
staff tapes and edits the pieces. With the grassroots news pro-
gram, we have created an avenue for public communication
enabling us to serve many more community groups and simulta-
neously catalyze our civic sector.
Rebuilding the Town Square
I have shared the access-staff person instinct to box the ears
of those who dial us up requesting TV coverage of one thing or
another — as though we are an army of videographers just waiting
to serve groups who have no desire to videotape anything them-
selves. I have moaned and groaned at the prospect of adding
more outreach, production support, new media services, and
staff programming to counteract the communications inertia of a
waning American civic sector. Why should under-funded, overex-
tended community media centers take on so many extra chal-
lenges when we are already straining our Popeye-esque "mus-
kles" to accomplish our core activities well?
Because there's not much choice. Because the treadmill cul-
ture we are part of is mass producing apathy and disengagement
from community life, and it's our job — in partnership with every-
body we can enlist — to confront that. In an ideal world, media
center staff would attend to each group in the order that they
have lined up around the block. In our world, people are dis-
persed and consumed by shopping, long hours at work, brain-
numbing commutes, and hours of seductive entertainment in
front of one screen or another. Our challenge is to rebuild a town
square — lifting voices and transporting dialogue and dance from
every sector of the community — as though the very life of our
community were at stake!
Notes
1 Several Harvard University st tidies confirm that volunteerism and
civic activity — across the board — have been on an alarming decline
sincel965. See Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American
Communityby Robert D. Putnam (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000)
Elliot Margolies is the executive producer at the Midpeninsuta
Community Media Center (MCMQ in Palo Alto, California, after 11
years as executive director. Email; elliot@commuiiitymedkicenter.net
CTC President Ellison Home, Mayor Willie L. Brown Jr, and
Access San Francisco Executive Director Zane Blaney cut the
ribbon for the new public access facility in San Francisco.
A New Day Dawns
for Public Access
in San Francisco
he April 27 grand opening of Access San Francisco
heralds the first substantial upgrade of public
access television in the city in over 20 years. The
Honorable Mayor Willie Brown Jr. was present to cut the
ribbon, officially opening the doors of Access San
Francisco to the hundreds of producers, volunteers, pro-
grammers, and community organizations who use the
facility on a regular basis. The new 4400 square foot public
access media center
includes multiple studios
including a flash studio,
linear digital edit suites,
TiltRac automated play-
back system, and Sony
PD-150 field packages.
The grand opening is
the culmination of a
three-year effort to bring a new beginning to community-
based media in San Francisco, including a successful tran-
sition of cable operator management to non-profit man-
agement by the San Francisco Community Television
Corporation (CTC).
Access San Francisco Executive Director Zane Blaney
reflects, "Now that this build-out has been completed, San
Francisco takes its place among cities with state-of-the-art
access facilities. We look forward to facing the challenges of
raising needed and sustainable funding, promoting com-
munity dialog among the people of San Francisco, helping
underrepresented and diverse voices empower themselves,
and developing partnerships with media arts associations,
media literacy groups, and other community-based organi-
zations."
Re- thinking Access'
Cultural Barriers to Public Access Television
"In stratified societies, unequally
empowered social groups tend to
develop unequally valued cultural
styles. The result is the development of
powerful informal pressures that mar-
ginalize the contributions of members
of subordinated groups both in every-
day contexts and in official public
spheres."
r - Nancy Fraser
by Bill Kirkpatrick
Introduction
finis article I would like to address
Fwhat I see as a disconnect between
the principles of public access and
the philosophy of public access. On the
one hand is the founding principle of free
speech — democracy of the airwaves,
everybody's channel, your voice can be
heard, etc. On the other, there is a domi-
nant philosophy of civic participation in
the marketplace of ideas that values a
particular kind of political speech and
certain notions of quality over others —
with the result that "bad" or "fringe" or
"vanity" programming is devalued and
denigrated. Thus you can read George
Stoney, in the summer 2001 issue of
Community Media Review, who talks
about "irresponsible" users with their
"thoughtless self-indulgence . . . wasting
everybody's time" (29) or you might have
read the description of the panel on con-
troversial programming at the 2001 con-
ference in Washington, D.C., describing
certain producers who are a "menace to
access" and must be "defeated." ll is not
quite, it seems, everybody's channel after
all. Instead, we find a gap where the prin-
ciple of open access doesn't quite meet
the philosophy of civic participation.
There are several possible ways of
bridging this gap. Stoney's solution is to
ease away from first principles, tolerating
self-indulgence while applying persua-
sion and pressure on producers to con-
form to certain kinds of speech. Today, I
will take the other approach and argue
that we instead need to ease away from
privileging certain forms of political
speech, not in order to say that anything
20«
On the one hand is the founding prin-
ciple of free speech — democracy of
the airwaves, everybody's channel,
your voice can be heard, etc. On the
other, there is a dominant philosophy
of civic participation in the market-
place of ideas that values a particular
kind of political speech and certain
notions of quality over other...
goes, but in order to understand the poli-
tics inherent even in apparently "trivial"
programming, in other words, before we
back away from open access, let's look at
why so-called "bad" programming is con-
sidered bad, and whether there isn't in
fact a lot more good in such program-
ming than we realize.
The Case of Metromen
I started thinking about this issue a
few years ago when I was cablecasting at
my local public access station in
Madison, Wisconsin, VVYOU. During my
shift, we had a program called Metromen
that consisted of a group of highschoolers
basically sitting around talking to their
friends who called in, interspersed with
segments in which they pretended to
wrestle in the style of their WWE heroes.
Now, there is probably a show like this (or
close enough) on just about every access
station around the country: unprofes-
sional, undisciplined, and politically
unfocussed.
However, what I found
most interesting about this
show was not the content per
se, but the role it came to play
in the politics of the station.
On the one hand, there were
complaints from the public about the
occasional swear word or off-color refer-
ence that popped up, and the show was
used by then-provider TCI and certain
municipal leaders to try to strangle public
access in Madison. But there were also
pressures coming from the producer and
staff at WYOU to make the show more
"serious," more "issue-oriented," more
like the original political vision of public
access. The teens could dabble in wrestle-
mania and have their fun, but there
should be some "real content" to the
show — "teen issues" and the like. In short,
they officially tolerated the teens' self-
indulgence while pressuring them to con-
form to more civic forms of speech:
essentially Stoney's preferred solution.
Making Metromen "Responsible"
In some ways, these pressures to
make the show more "responsible" may
have been in the best interests of the sta-
tion, toning down controversy during a
period of franchise renegotiation. But at
the same time, this episode sheds light on
some of the values and ideals that contin-
ue to underlie the philosophy of access —
values and ideas about culture, democra-
cy, speech, and society that work to either
privilege or suppress certain kinds of
speech, modes of expression, ideas, and
speakers. Through myriad subtle and not-
so-subtle ways, both visible and invisi-
ble — the raised eyebrow, the disparaging
comment, the selective lack of enthusi-
asm for a given production — we who are
involved in public access are also gate-
keepers, part of the forces that limit or
enable the principle of open access. As
Fraser noted in the epigram of this article,
there are powerful informal pressures that
help close off access to the media, and we
must recognize our participation in that
process.
Therefore, while public access practi-
...we...need to ease away from privileging certain
forms of political speech...in order to understand
the politics inherent even in apparently "trivial"
programming.
tinners have done an outstanding job of
reducing technological and financial bar-
riers to accessing the public sphere of
politics, there remain cultural barriers to
media participation that we need to bet-
ter address. So first 1 will talk a little bit
about traditional notions of the public
sphere, and some of the cultural barriers
that these notions fortify. Then 1 will dis-
cuss another way of looking at the public
sphere and consider how this second
model might help address some of these
cultural barriers, adjusting the fit between
our principles and our philosophies.
Access and the Public Sphere
So let's start with the public sphere.
Central to theories of democracy is the
idea that there must be a way for citizens
to come together to discuss issues of
common concern so that public opinion
can be formed and democratic decisions
can be made. The "place" where this hap-
pens is the public sphere. Perhaps the
most influential ideas about the public
sphere were formed by a German
philosopher named Juergen Habermas. 2
Habermas argued that the ideal public
sphere would be one in which social sta-
tus could be separated from public
debate: we should, in effect, pretend to all
have the same status and social power so
that we can debate as equals. The way
that this would work in practice is that
public debate would be "rational-critical"
debate— logical, unemotional, reasoned,
deliberate, and politically focused.
While Habermas himself may or may
not be a familiar figure, there is a version
of such ideas that is more common. This
is the metaphor of the "marketplace of
ideas" that is so central to First
Amendment theory. The idea here is that
we have free speech in a democracy — a
free market of ideas— and that the best
idea will ultimately be the one that wins
out. Through rational dialogue, we as a
society can form public opinion about
how to govern ourselves. In this philoso-
phy, power is seen to reside in the ideas
themselves, not in the speaker, the speak-
er's status, or the mode of communica-
tion: good ideas will drown out bad ideas.
The Public Sphere and
the Marketplace of Ideas
The marketplace of ideas metaphor of
the public sphere has been very influen-
tial in the history of public access, and
almost every key work refers to it in some
form oi' another. 3 In fact, it is hard to even
imagine having public access without
thinking in these terms, because what
public access offers first and foremost is
access to this supposed marketplace of
ideas: historically it has been about creat-
ing a public sphere to which all citizens
have access, bringing about that
Habermasian ideal in which not just the
rich and powerful can go on television,
but even ordinary citizens can have their
voice heard, so that the best ideas win
out.
It is clear that this metaphor has got-
ten us a very long way, and I have nothing
but respect for those who pioneered and
continue to struggle on behalf of this
ideal. But 1 also hope to point out where
the limits are — how this philosophy of
access can get us only so far. If public
access is about access to the marketplace
of ideas, then the barriers that it must
confront are primarily financial and tech-
nological. Specifically, to gain access to
the airwaves, you have to have the finan-
cial means and the technical know-how
to get your message out. That's why pub-
lic access is free (or virtually free) to its
users; that's why there's such a strong
emphasis on equipment and technical
training; that's why outreach is so impor-
tant to bring in representatives of various
groups: We're building a public sphere to
which social status is no barrier. It doesn't
matter how rich you are or how well edu-
cated or what language you speak; public
access will guarantee you entry into that
ideal public sphere. And thanks to this
vision, public access has had enormous
successes over the past 30 years.
Valuing Rational-Critical
Speech Forms Over Others
It follows from this that, because we
are trying to bring about a particular ideal
public sphere, certain kinds of speech are
valued over others. Specifically, we tend
to value the civic, rational-critical modes
of speech — the public affairs shows, town
meetings, "arts and culture," etc. — over
more populist speech, rude speech, vani-
ty programming, etc. So in the example of
Metromen, there was pressure to spend
less time wrestling (which is not consid-
ered civic speech) and more time dis-
cussing so-called teen issues, ideally in a
kind of rational-critical form of discourse
that rarely overlaps with the teens' own
preferred way of speaking. Tn other words,
the producers of this public access show
were asked to enter the public sphere not
this episode
sheds light on some
of the values and
ideals that continue
to underlie the phi-
losophy of access-
values and ideas
about culture,
democracy, speech,
and society that
work to either privi-
lege or suppress
certain kinds of
speech, modes of
expression, ideas,
and speakers."
on their own
terms, but on
the more
restrictive terms
of the ideal
rational-critical
public sphere.
Another exam-
ple comes from
the Alliance dis-
cussion list a
while ago: The
thread was
about call-in
shows, and one
participant
emphasized the
need to screen
die callers so
that, for instance, you don't have some-
one screaming obscenities at the mayor.
In other words, it is perfectly acceptable
to discuss denying access to those who do
not conform to what we deem "accept-
able" or "quality" speech.
These are not isolated examples. In
fact, if you read the critics of television
such as Robert Putnam, you will fre-
quently find hierarchies of quality estab-
lished in which shows like Nightline that
emphasize rational-critical debate are
deemed relatively good, while shows like
Jerry Springer are deemed "trash": not
worth watching, possibly even pathologi-
cal. Such hierarchies are also active in
public access, despite the principle of
openness and tolerance. In a 1999 article
in the Journal of Broadcasting and
Electronic Media, Donna King and
Christopher Mele argued much the same
thing, taking to task prominent writers on
access for valorizing "legitimate" public
discourse while treating so-called "vanity"
or "fringe" programming as an embar-
rassing waste of time. To the extent that
such hierarchies are — perhaps "enforced"
is too strong a word — communicated by
those in power at an access studio, they
serve to discourage or limit certain speak-
ers and forms of speech from being
broadcast.
Now, given enough support and coop-
eration from the community, the munici-
pal government, and the cable company,
we can begin to solve the financial and
technological barriers to access. But these
cultural barriers are much more subtle
and difficult to solve. They involve re-
thinking not just what the access project
©1121
is, not just our definitions of "quality,"
but even how democracy itself might
work in ways that don't depend on the
idealized public sphere or the market-
place of ideas.
Hurdling Cultural Barriers to Access
To repeat: according to the dominant
philosophy of access, we should be trying
above all to bring about a public sphere
in which we pretend that differences do
not exist, in which we engage in rational-
critical debate, and that we aim for some
sort of consensus of public opinion
through the marketplace of ideas. We
prefer "serious" and "quality" program-
ming on our stations, and at best merely
tolerate programs that don't conform to
our definitions of those virtues. I would
argue, however, that a rational mode of
politics is not the only way society works.
Public opinion is not expressed only
through the official realm of politics and
civic speech, and social relations are not
negotiated only through public policy. I
would suggest that opinions about socie-
ty are just as valid when expressed
through marginalized forms of speech,
perhaps even more so, but — and this is
key — we need to learn to read this speech
for what it is, for its political content.
Furthermore, resistance to the existing
social order, which is an important con-
tribution to the public sphere, often takes
forms of speech that are themselves
opposed to that order. In such cases,
rational-political debate, civic speech,
propriety) and obvious relevance (obvi-
ous to the mainstream and relevant to
the mainstream, that is) give way to
oppositional and resistant forms of
speech. And those forms are just as valid
as any other. Instead of further marginal-
izing them, we must try to see them as
resistant politics in a resistant package.
An analogy might be helpful here.
When Public Enemy raps about racial
tension and conditions in the inner
cities, a large segment of mainstream
society will reject it as atonal garbage, as
so much irritating noise: profane,
obscene, devoid of musicality, etc. While I
disagree with such characterizations, the
important thing is that the same message
If we question the taste hierarchies born of our
commitment to the civic definition of politics,
then we can begin to confront the cultural barri-
ers that impinge on the principle of open access.
of oppression and unrest, wrapped up in
a polite documentary, with the bad words
bleeped out and the conventions of doc-
umentary dutifully followed, is much
more likely to win our approval as hon-
est, hard-hitting political speech. Why?
Because it is a form of speech that we
understand, that we are comfortable
with, that submits to the mode of politics
that we like— and if that form doesn't
speak to the producers or their intended
audience, then the problem must lie with
them, not us. It is, according to this all-
too-prevalent view, not our fault for mis-
understanding the political speech in a
rap song, but their fault for not encoding
that political speech in the form we
desire. In point of fact, Public Enem/s
music contributed significantly to the
public sphere in articulating opposition
to racial oppression, in helping the dis-
possessed make sense of their lives, and
in resisting the social relations that con-
tribute to the unspeakable conditions of
the inner city. The barriers of under-
standing that lead many to miss this fact
are purely cultural.
Political Potential in
All Forms of Speech
To return to Public access, to call
something "fringe" or "vanity" program-
ming is to dismiss the speaker because
we don't understand the speech—
whether or not we are even being spoken
to. Instead of valorizing rational-critical
debate, the realm of "official" politics, the
public affairs shows, the "arts and cul-
ture" shows, and the earnest documen-
taries, we need to understand and appre-
ciate the political potential in all forms of
speech. So in the example oiMetromen,
we have a show that isn't devoid of poli-
tics, and it doesn't need to be "corrected"
by injecting "teen issues." It is, in fact, all
about teen issues: issues of identity as
they try on different personas; issues of
inclusion and exclusion as they negotiate
friendships and social networks through
the medium; obvious issues of sexuality
and masculinity; and issues of resistance
to adult authority and control as they use
their language, pursue their interests,
and mobilize their cultural artifacts like
■MM wrestling and rap music to
challenge their subordinated
social position. To call them
irresponsible and self-indul-
gent means that we want
them to resist power using
power's tools instead of their own.
By recognizing their contribution to
the public sphere, however, we can begin
to close the gap between our principles
and our philosophy. If we question the
taste hierarchies born of our commit-
ment to the civic definition of politics,
then we can begin to confront the cultur-
al barriers that impinge on the principle
of open access.
Cultural Barriers Create
an Access Disconnect
Public access is valuable because it
fosters democratic participation, yes, but
it is also valuable precisely because it is
divisive, disruptive, and transgressive —
and even because it is trivial, banal, and
inane. As a forum for those lacking in the
social and economic power to use other
media, public access needs to be defend-
ed especially for speech that strikes the
mainstream as ridiculous or dangerous.
We need to review our role in further
marginalizing such speech even in the
supposedly open forum of access. I low
do we treat such producers? How do we
schedule them? How do we show them
that their contribution is (or is not) val-
ued? And how can we overcome our own
tastes and prejudices about what consti-
tutes appropriate speech in order to fos-
ter a more supportive climate for these
producers?
My argument is that cultural barriers
help create an unfortunate disconnect
between access principles and philoso-
phies, but that there are things we can do
and adjustments we can make to help
bridge this gap. These means rethinking
how the public sphere operates, using a
more generous understanding of political
speech and the different cultural forms it
can take. It means helping producers
realize their vision, not ours.
Notes
1 Fraser, 120.
2 See for instance The Structural
Transformation of the Public Sphere. While
Habermas revised his ideas about the pub-
lic sphere over the years, this 1962 book
remains one of the seminal works in public
sphere theory. It should be noted that this
book was not translated into English until
1989, and thus was not a direct influence on
early public access advocates per se.
However, many of Habermas' ideas about
democracy and the media were part of a
larger school of leftist thought that was
22
influential in the 1960s and 1970s, most notably through the
work of Marcuse, Adorno, Horkheimer, and Enzensberger, and it
was Habermas who applied these ideas to the concept of the
public sphere.
s The marketplace of ideas metaphor is highly flexible, and has
been invoked on both the left and the right with varied empha-
sis depending on the ideological position of the speaker. Thus,
those on the right tend to erase the question of power in order
to use the metaphor to sustain a market- populist ideology,
while those on the left make issues of power and status more
central in order to highlight disparities in access to the means of
communication,
Bibliography and Works Consulted
Aufderheide, Patricia. "Public Television and the Public Sphere."
Cultural Studies in Mass Communication 3 (1991): 168-183.
Calhoun, Craig. "Introduction: Habermas and the Public
Sphere." Habermas and the Public Sphere. Ed. Craig Calhoun.
Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1992. 1-48.
Fiske, John. Television Culture, London and New York:
Routledge, 1987.
— . "Popularity and the Politics of Information." Journalism and
Popular Culture. Eds. Peter Dahlgren and Colin Sparks. London:
Sage Publications, 1992.
Eraser, Nancy. "Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to
the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy." Habermas and the
Public Sphere. Ed. Craig Calhoun. Cambridge, Mass. and
London: MIT Press, 1992. 109-142.
Habermas, luergen. The Structural Transformation of the Public
Sphere. Cambridge: Polity, 1989.
King, Donna L. and Christopher Mele. "Making Public Access
Television: Community Participation, Media Literacy and the
Public Sphere." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. Fall,
1999: 603-623.
Meijer, Irene Costera. "Advertising Citizenship: An Essay on the
Performative Power of Consumer Culture." Media, Culture &
Society 20 (1998): 235-239.
Ouellette, Laurie. "TVViewing as Good Citizenship? Political
Rationality, Enlightened Democracy and PBS." Cultural Studies
13 .1 [1999): 62-90.
Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of
American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000.
Stoney, George. "The Essential George Stoney." Community
Media Review 242 (Summer 2001): 29-31.
Young, Iris Marion. "The Ideal of Community and the Politics of
Difference." Feminism/Postmodernism. Ed. Linda J. Nicholson.
London: Routledge, 1990. 300-323.
Bill Kirkpatrick is a doctoral candidate in Media and
Cultural Studies of the Department of Communication Arts at
the University ofWisconsin, Madison. Email: mwkirkpa@stu-
dents.wisc.edu. He is currently workingon his dissertation, which
focuses on the cultural dimensions of alternative media.
This article was presented in the White Paper session at the
2001 national conference of the Alliance for Community Media in
Washington, D.C. It was selected through competitive submission
of essays during the Spring of 2001; authors were asked to address
a philosophical or self reflexive aspect of access.
Quotes to Ponder
"Anyone who expects to be emancipated by technological
hardware, or by a system of hardware however structured, is the
victim of an obscure belief in progress. Anyone who imagines
that freedom for the media will be established if only everyone
is busy transmitting and receiving is the dupe of a liberalism
which, decked out in contemporary colors, merely peddles the
faded concepts of a preordained harmony of social interests."
- Hans Magnus Enzensberger, 1970.
"Constituents of a Theory of the Media." Dreamers of the
Absolute: Essays on Politics, Crimeand Culture. Trans. Stuart Hood.
London: Century Hutchinson, 1988. 20-53.
"We should thus be deeply skeptical about any claims that
access is inherently democratizing. Such claims are made
through the narcotic haze of technological utopianism that was
widespread at the time when access first appeared in cable fran-
chises."
- Andrew Blau, 1992.
"The Promise of Public Access." The Independent 15.3
(April): 22-26.
"Communications technology does not automatically solve
problems. The use of media for animation purposes is process
rather than task oriented. The process of a community forming
associations, formulating and articulating concerns, forging
public discourse, achieving consensus and restructuring power
relationships is probably more significant than the programs
themselves, and certainly more significant than the technology
used to accomplish these processes."
-BobDevine, 1992.
"Video, Access and Agency." Paper Presented at the Annual
Conference of the National Federation of Local Cable Programmers.
St. Paul, Minnesota. July 17.
"When we understand that communication is based on
social relationships, we see that our work [in access] is not sim-
ply ' providing a communication opportunity' in some neutral
way. As community media centers and media makers, our work
is as much about furthering public discourse and social change
as it is about making programs. To ignore that fact will only
recreate the same old social patterns in a new glitzy electronic
space. Taking a leadership role in media education provides us
with The real work' to do in our communities, and it can provide
us with the conceptual tools and the self awareness needed to
do the job."
- Fred Johnson, 1994.
"The Real Work is Media Education." Community Media Review
17.1 (January /February): 4+.
©«23
Integrating Teaching and Educational Cable
to Enrich The Community, Campus & Students
by Robert Huesca
he educational cable channel in
>> ** / f San Antonio, Texas provides
schools with a valuable, though
grossly under-utilized, resource for
showcasing student talent, contributing
to the academic curriculum, and enrich-
ing the local community. Though guilty
of neglecting this precious resource, I
recently had the opportunity to place the
educational cable channel at the heart of
a final assignment in a course on alterna-
tive media at Trinity University where I
teach. This had beneficial effects for the
students, the institution, and the local
community. This article will briefly
describe a class-produced documentary
that aired on the local educational cable
channel, the course itself and how aca-
demic curricula might be used more sys-
tematically to enrich educational cable
offerings.
When I Dream Dreams
When I Dream Dreams is a 20-minute
documentary examining the social, psy-
chological, and linguistic consequences
of a Texas law that criminalized the use of
any language other than English in the
public schools from 1918 to 1968. The
documentary, which aired on the educa-
tional cable channel in March of this
year, is based on interviews with local,
Mexican-American teachers, students,
and lawmakers who worked and studied
in the public schools at the time the law
was in force.
The title of the documentary- is drawn
from a poem of the same name that
describes the thoughts, dreams, and
experiences of a student at Rhodes
Middle School, which is located in a pre-
dominately Mexican American neighbor-
hood where Spanish is spoken by many
residents. The poem's author, Carmen
Tafolla, recited the lines, which served as
a narrative device that opened, closed,
and appeared intermittently in the docu-
mentary, Woven between the poem's
verses, interviewees describe their expe-
riences:
▲ "Ispenta lot of time in, the clothes
closet for speaking Spanish. 1 remember
24«
In the future when I teach this course,
I will probably design the assignment
so that students are required to con-
nect formally with local producers, who
are typically very welcoming of part-
nerships with area college students.
one time the kids went to lunch and the
teacher forgot that I was in there. So I
went and got my lunch and proceeded to
eat it in the clothes closet," former student
Ernesto Bernal.
A "I have a paddle with holes drilled
through it, and it says, 'Board of
Education,' and it's got kids' signatures
and little strokes next to the signatures.
The rule at the school was one stroke — a
stroke was a hit with the paddle — a stroke
for every word of Spanish ," former student
Carmen Tafolla.
A "Every Monday the school would
issue you a ribbon, and on that ribbon it
said, 1 speak English, I'm a good
American.' And our students that were on
the student counci! would walk the halls,
and if I heard you speaking Spanish, I
would take your name, lake your ribbon
a way from you, and turn that ribbon over
to your homeroom teacher, and you would
get a demerit. That was the system," for-
mer state representative and senator Joe
Bernal.
The sequencing of the documentary
first establishes the context of the schools
for non-English speakers, then explores
the social, psychological, and linguistic
consequences, and finally describes the
means of overcoming the policy's damag-
ing effects. The emotionally charged
interviews variously elicit sadness, sym-
pathy, anger, and hope, and they func-
tion as a document of historic impor-
tance in San Antonio where bilingual
education continues to be debated.
School Curricula and
Educational Cable Channels
This rich and evocative documentary
stands as testimony of what can happen
when school curricula are integrated with
the philosophy and mission of educa-
tional cable channels. This documentary
was the product of a university course
examining alternative media, where stu-
dents spent the first ten weeks studying
theories and philosophies such as
democracy and communication, com-
munity media, and feminism. During this
time they also examined alternative
media exemplars such as fanzines, pirate
radio, and public access and educational
cable television. In the final six weeks of
the course, teams were asked to produce
an alternarive media video that was guid-
ed by some of the theoretical and philo-
sophical contributions covered in the
first part of the class.
Among the assignment's require-
ments was a distribution plan for the
final video, and one group, the Dreams
video, identified a community screening
via the educational cable channel, among
other options. One way of enriching the
public access and educational cable
channels further might have been to
assign students to identify community-
producers who might have acted as col-
laborators in enhancing the final proj-
ects' distribution. Most cities have a core
of local producers who are connected to
institutions and issues and who have
developed loyal viewers, in the future
when I teach this course, I will probably
design the assignment so that students
are required to connect formally with
local producers, who are typically very
welcoming of partnerships with area col-
lege students.
The Role of the Documentary
in Community Life
Although the March cablecast gener-
ated little public feedback, the student
producers have a larger conceptual frame
of reference for thinking about die role of
"I have a paddle with holes drilled through it, and it says, 'Board of Education,' and it's got
kids' signatures and little strokes next to the signatures. The rule at the school was one
stroke — a stroke was a hit with the paddle— a stroke for every word of Spanish."
- Carmen Tafolla
the documentary in community life. The
student producers identified their work as
an alternative video largely because of its
content, which focused on a topic virtual-
ly ignored by mainstream media, chal-
lenged conventional views regarding pub-
lic schools, and drew on voices that are
excluded from public discourse.
Furthermore, the producers enlisted the
interviewees to play the role of story-
tellers, rather than to answer a list of fac-
tual questions in the style of mainstream
journalism, and included lengthy seg-
ments that stood on their own, without
the professional scripting of the omnis-
cienl narrator. In this way the students
felt that some video agency was being
relinquished by them and conferred upon
the participants. One student wrote in her
reflexive analysis, "Our video also very
much interrupted traditional power
codes — it enabled individuals whose val-
ues have been marginalized the opportu-
nity to reclaim and reconstruct the por-
trait of their culture."
Student Producer Growth and
Transformation
Finally, the producers of this video
described a feeling of individual growth
and transformation while working on a
video that attempted to appeal to a broad
community audience, while breaking
away from mainstream documentary
conventions. This self transformation
came from enlisting interviewees to func-
tion as collaborating storytellers, which
led to an expansion of the producers'
consciousness that might not have
occurred had they followed a more tradi-
tional line of documentary production.
The educational cable channel, therefore,
needs to be valued not only for its output,
but also for its impact on production
practices leading up to distribution and
exhibition.
The educational cable channel in San
Antonio has evolved into primarily a car-
rier of bulletin board announcements
and canned programming of classroom
activities and routine student produc-
tions, such as news and talk shows. This
recent experience with a documentary of
historic local importance demonstrated
one way of enhancing the value of this
resource by integrating it with a course
that provided a thoughtful and challeng-
ing impetus to student producers. In the
end, the documentary not only benefited
die educational cable audience, but it
enhanced the learning of the students
who were trying to reach the public using
some unconventional techniques and
strategies.
Suggested Reading:
Branwyn, G. (1997). Jamming the Media: A
Citizen's Guide: Reclaiming the Tools of
Communication. San Francisco: Chronicle
Books.
Downing, J. D. (2001). Radical Media:
Rebellious Communication and Social
Movements. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Harding, T. (1997). The Video Activist
Handbook. London: Pluto Press.
Rodriguez, C. (2001). Fissures in the
Mediascape: An Inter-national Study of
Citizens' Media. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton
Press.
Robert Huesca is an associa te professor
in the Department of Communication at
Trinity University, 715 Stadium Drive, San
Antonio, TX 78212. Email:
Rhuesca@lrmity.edu. His research interests
are in communication and social change,
community media, and international com-
munication.
This article will be presented in a White
Paper session at the 2002 national confer-
ence of the Alliance for Community Media in
Houston, Texas.
Coming in the Fall 2002 Community Media Review
"Celebrate Diversity: Something for Everyone"
Houston, Texas — home to more than four million people of more than 100 different
nationalities. And host to the Alliance's 2002 International Conference and Trade Show
and its "Celebrate Diversity: Something for Everyone" theme.
The fall 2002 issue of Community Media Review will commemorate the Alliance's confer-
ence theme by providing insight into the ways various PEG centers throughout the coun-
try have made access accessible, profiles of individual and groups whose work results in
media access for members of our diverse communities, and Conference highlights.
To propose an article for the fall 2002 issue, send an email to the CMR Editorial Board at:
cmr@grcmc.org. We'd welcome the opportunity to share with our readers how your com-
munity makes access accessible.
For advertising opportunities, please contact Don James at 202.393.2650.
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Where in the World is U.S. PEG?
"...a wider context to all our actions, our geography and our very lives."
by DeeDee Halleck
/p> September 1 1 so forcefully pointed out, we in the US
/-§ have to realize that there is a wider context to all our
v_- / ' (./actions, our geography and our very lives. I recall years
ago Elliot Margolies, then director of Cupertino Cable, in a PSA
for Deep Dish recounted a conversation he had with his son.
"Dad, why do we have wars?" was the question. "Son, because we
don't have enough public access." was his answer. Now more
than ever, community communication is necessary— crucial. But
the wider context is essential.
There are several ways in which the PEG community in the
US has been part of a global context. First, of course, is as a
model for community dialogue. The creation of the infrastructure
for democratic communication has been something many
groups all over the world are seeing as an important example of
using technology to enhance civic participation. Movements have
sprung up in Germany, Korea, Brazil and many other countries
which have been initiated and encouraged by the work of access
in this country.
Second, the US access movement has successfully "taxed"
multinational corporations in a way that provides for public "pay
back". This has been seen and is being studied globally as a
unique and useful application of contractual law. This has impli-
cations not only for television and internet, but for other aspects
of business: by requiring responsibility for local benefit from
large multi-national corporations.
Third, the PEG movement has provided the world with
ambassadors of communication — those leaders, such as Dirk
Koning, jessika ross, George Stoney and others who have traveled
the world to assist local efforts by sharing their vast experience
and concrete knowledge.
Fourth, and this is where I think the PEG community must
take more leadership, has been the use of local community media
for discussion of global issues.
Encouraging Global Understanding
How can local channels help to sustain global understanding?
Obviously one way is for community media centers to provide
space and infrastructure for immigrant populations to express
their concerns and culture. I recall during the Gulf War visiting
the Minneapolis center and seeing two editors working on a pro-
gram which was basically Saddam lTussein's speeches. It was a
local Iraqi group making their weekly show. I recall thinking that
what they really needed was to translate the program so that
other people in the Twin Cities could at least hear what "the
enemy" was saying. Could the process of doing that translation
have been initiated by the access center? Could the Iraqi produc-
ers have been encouraged to participate in a round table discus-
sion? Could there be community forums (face to face, not neces-
sarily only on the tube)? Of course PEG administrators are over-
worked and under- budgeted and not looking for extra work.
However, if PEG is to thrive in this difficult climate, we must
encourage programming that takes ourselves and the world seri-
ously. Certainly the local network news is not going to provide
this sort of forum. Unless community media becomes more pro-
active, we will soon be as irrelevant as the mass media portrays
us.
Another possibility is program exchange with media makers
from other countries, by helping local organizations connect with
international sources of media. One example is Korean Labor
News. As many factories move out of the country, it is becoming
more and more important for workers around the world to share
their concerns. Myoung Joon Kim has been a frequent visitor to
this country and works with video makers who document labor
struggles in his country.
Many of these programs are
translated and could be quite
useful for local rank and file
workers to see and discuss.
Other areas for exchange are
the environmental and ani-
mal rights movements. There
are many local groups who
would probably value having
international programming
on these issues. By providing the
resources to facilitate this sort of
program exchange, PEG can
improve the channel's quality
and increase local support.
Indy Media Center Movement
An example of community
media that has been able to suc-
cessfully operate on a global
scale in a uniquely horizontal
and democratic way is the
Independent Media Center
movement (www.indymedia.org).
Begun in Seattle during the demonstrations around the World
Trade Organization, this movement has sparked media activity in
over 80 sites around the world, by providing a forum for reporting
and posting of video, audio and photos. IMC's could never have
developed without global collaboration— the initial software
(which provides for instant posting of many file formats) was
developed in Australia and the elaborate foundation of servers
and mirror server back-ups depends on infrastructure from many
counties. An interesting resource for understanding just how the
IMCs work is their open discussion archive at http://process.indy-
media.org. If there is an IMC in your community, find out how to
connect with this dynamic group of media activists.
Upcoming Actions
As militarism flourishes around the world and the threat of
nuclear war again rears its head, PEG centers must be places
where we can resurrect peace and global understanding. This can
only happen if we see ourselves as part of a larger community of
As militarism flourishes
around the world and the
threat of nuclear war again
rears its head, PEG centers
must be places where we
can resurrect peace and
global understanding. This
can only happen if we see
ourselves as part of a larg-
er community of people
around the world who are
dedicated to dialogue and
democratic exchange.
See Where in the World - page 31
@»27
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A Guide to Philosophical Discussions of Community Media
BY JOHN »
nth
StlK
groi
by John W. Higgins
(the early 1990s I was a graduate
f student with an extensive back-
ground in commercial and commu-
nity-based media, working on a disserta-
tion about public access. Fred Johnson of
Media Working Group put together a con-
ference in Cincinnati, Ohio, that brought
together two groups with interests in com
munity media: scholars and practitioners.
Between breaks, Dirk Koning from Grand
Rapids pulled out a elaborately
folded, origami-like piece of
paper and asked me to choose
"Pee Wee's Magic Word of the
Day." ("Pee Wee's Magic Word"
was a feature of a popular chil-
dren's television program; when
the secret word was mentioned
throughout the show, all people
and objects went wild.)
I chose a section of the fold-
ed paper; it lifted to reveal the
word "hegemony." When I chose
another, the word "pedagogy"
was revealed; another showed
"counter-hegemonic video." We
laughed uproariously— the
scholarly presentations had been
rather stuffy and pretentious
and, in some instances, unneces-
sarily obscure and jargon-laden,
Nonetheless, the conference was
successful in bringing together
scholars and practitioners inter-
ested in promoting the ideals of
grassroots, community-based,
democratic media, and rooting
the emergent theoretical per-
spectives on lived practice. The
meeting was one event that
helped cultivate "public intellec-
tuals," or "organic intellectuals,"
or "philosopher practitioners" —
people who engage the world
through practice, reflect on the
broader impact of such actions, with a the-
oretically and politically based conscious-
ness about the implications of action and
thought.
I think about that experience in
Cincinnati at times. Access participation
tends to cultivate public intellectuals from
many different walks of life, involved in
many different capacities within access:
producers, staff, viewers, board members,
administrators. We need a space to gather
and theoretically frame our access experi-
ences, to place them in larger contexts —
political, social, or philosophical, to name
but a few. It doesn't take an advanced
degree to participate in these discussions.
But it can help to have a guide to the con-
versation.
Philosophical discussions related to
access at times draw on shorthand terms
in order to convey complex ideas in a
lllli
N
T R O D U C
The
N G
r
fully realize goals of equality and partici-
patory democracy. They provide a more
robust understanding of the nature of poli-
tics and power within society than the
one-dimensional views portrayed on our
nightly network newscasts.
The American mass media train us not
to think too deeply about our lives, our
beliefs, our relationship with the world.
The corporate media promote anti-intel-
lect ualism and do little to encourage inde-
pendent analytical or critical
thought. Access participation
shatters this model — encourag-
ing a process of exploration of
and engagement with ourselves,
our communities, our world. We
see that starting with the discov-
ery of our own voice — or helping
someone discover theirs — we
can shape our world, we can
make a difference.
Here is a brief guide to some
of the concepts behind the dis-
cussions:
The Enlightenment
The 18th century European
philosophical movement upon
which the founding philosophies
Ma Studies
short period of time. Some of the more
philosophically-based critiques of access
and community media may seem a bit
alien to the uninitiated; they are based on
political and philosophical thought emerg-
ing primarily from tire experiences of
W r oiid Wars I and II. These schools of
thought challenged many of the philo-
sophical assumptions of the European and
American democracies in order to more
I f^G^ of the U.S. constitutional system
were based. The
Enlightenment— the "Age of
Reason" — applied "scientific,"
rational thought to all areas of
life: morality, politics, social, reli-
gion, philosophy, and science.
The Enlightenment venerated
the role of the independent,
aloof, "objective" philosopher.
Libera) democratic, republi-
can; pluralist thought
Generic terms referring to
the Enlightenment-based princi-
ples underlying the U.S. consti-
tutional system. Whether dis-
cussing "right" or "left" or "cen-
trist" political stances, the big picture of
U.S. political philosophy is a republican
(representative) based system, encourag-
ing grassroots participation with an equal-
ity of rights (democratic), inclusive of
diverse groups and thought (pluralist) and
liberal (progressive, reform-oriented—
from the perspective of the era of the
Enlighten-ment) in approach.
Ideas related to the "marketplace of ►
©1129
25th
Anniversary
Edition
Community
Media Review
A 100-page keep-
sake edition cap-
turing the first 25
years of the
Alliance for
Community
Media, 1976-2001.
Stories, histories, photos, regions, international,
timelines. It's all here. An excellent primer reflect-
ing the spirit of a quarter century of democratic
media activism.
Now available at a special price of only $2, per
issue while supplies last.
Visit www.alliancecm.org to order your copies
today.
Who could have imagined twenty years ago, when GRTV
broadcast its first live public access television program, that
he channel would evolve into the Community Media Center
— an array of media services for citizens and nonprofit organ-
zatioris, offering television, radio, information democracy
and media literacy, internet access, computer literacy, video
production, and a media archives.
980 Grand Rapids Cable Access Center, Inc. formed.
98 f Dirk Kerning hired as executive director.
982 First live broadcast on GRTV.
983 GRTV opens in lower level of the Ryerson Library.
984 Federal cable act allows additional funding.
985 City of Grand Rapids signs 1 5-year franchise.
986 Lillie Oliver joins GRCAC staff.
987 Chuck Peterson joins GRCAC staff.
989 GRCAC assumes ownership of community
radio station WYCE, 88. i FM.
993 GRCAC adopts Community Media Center
(CMC! as its dba.
994 CMC awarded former Health Channel.
994 CMC assumes ownership of
Grand Rapids Freenet.
CMC launches GrandNet, an ISP for nonprofits.
CMC dedicates new facility in the
Westside Library,
Keliie Ashcroft joins CMC staff.
CMC unveils GRIID, the Grand Rapids Institute
for Information Democracy.
City of Grand Rapids signs i 5-year franchise with
AT&T Cable that includes GRTV and LiveWire.
CMC and GRTV launch MOLLIE, the Mobile
Learning Lab for Information Education.
www.grcmc.org • Community Media Center
71 1 Bridge St. NW • Grand Rapids, Ml 49504
996
997
997
998
2001
2002
30
October 24, 25 & 26, 2002
kalamazoo, michigan
alliance for community media
fall regional
conference
express
yoursel f with
access
COMMUNITY ACCESS CENTER
359 S. Kalamazoo Mall, Suite 300- Kalamazoo, Ml 49007
616-343-2211
ideas," "one person, one vote" — or "first
come, first served" — stem from these
roots.
Critical
Not the same as "analytical." In this
context, "critical" refers to an analysis that
includes power (political) relationships,
may be self- reflexive in approach, and
seeks social change. The term also identi-
fies a particular approach to scholarly
study that includes and transcends subject
areas such as communicalion, sociology,
anthropology, politics, economics, etc.
Critical theory disputes much of what it
sees as naive (unproblematic, under-theo-
rized) assumptions of the Enlightenment,
while supporting the goals of personal and
societal transcendence.
For example, a critical approach might
argue that the best way to achieve a "diver-
sity of ideas" might not be from the
Enlightenment-based "clash of ideas in the
marketplace," but from a more coopera-
tively-based model.
Critical thought emphasizes the role of
the "organic intellectual"— the practition-
er/philosopher who, guided by a political
and philosophical awareness, is able to act
within the world, reflect alone and with
others on the effect of those actions, and
re-direct action accordingly — to change
the world.
Power
Notions of power are at the heart of
critical thought and critiques of the
Enlightenment. "Power" means issues of
dominance and acquiescence, of which
traditional politics ("liberal democrat-
ic" /"pluralist" discussions) are only a small
part. An analysis of power within personal
relationships, the media, or society,
includes an exploration of which groups
rule, which groups are subjugated, how
the situation got to be this way, what ideals
and practices hold the unequal power rela-
tionships in place, how the situation might
be envisioned differently, and what actions
might be taken to change the situation.
These steps are applied from the micro to
the macro levels, from personal to societal
situations.
A critical analysis of "first come, first
served," for example, would argue that the
policy perpetuates unequal power rela-
tionships in the society— since the people
or groups most likely to first come through
the door are those who already exercise
some influence (power) in the community.
The policy of "first come, first served"
would be seen as politically naive in that it
attempts to restructure societal power
relationships (giving unheard voices an
opportunity to be heard), but actually
ends up reinforcing the status quo.
Hegemony
A key concept in the notion of power.
Formulated by Italian activist and philoso-
pher Antonio Gramsci in the 1930s, the
concept attempts to explain how power
actually operates within society.
Hegemony is the ability of the dominant
group (s) to exercise social and cultural
leadership over subordinated group(s) —
AND to maintain power over the econom-
ic, political, and cultural direction of the
larger society. This dominance is achieved
through social and cultural means, not by
direct coercion of subordinated groups.
An active, shifting set of group
alliances, hegemony is said to work best
when hidden. We consent to work with the
dominant group, often against our own
self and /or group interests. Hegemony
identifies culture as a site of struggle
between groups; in particular, the media
reinforce ideologies that help the domi-
nant group stay in power, since the media
serve to maintain the status quo.
Of particular significance to access
practitioner/philosophers is the notion of
resistance to the hegemonic process: that
there will always be resistance to the hege-
monic process; opposition and alterna-
tives can always be counted to spring up.
These alternatives will usually be " trashed"
("marginalized") by mainstream thought,
which is dominated by the hegemonic
group.
Pedagogy
An expanded conceptualization of
"teaching" and "learning" that recognizes
both processes take place at the same time.
Rather than being limited to just institu-
tional schooling, pedagogy refers to the way
we learn about the world, and how we
teach others to perceive the world. Within
the critical perspective, these processes are
considered sites of intense power and ideo-
logical conflicts.
Resources
I was led to graduate studies by a fascinat-
ing comic book that raised intellectual ques-
tions within a fun format. So, I place a lot of
stock in illustrated books — sort of like hefty
comic books with thought-provoking content.
For a fun exploration of some of the ideas pre-
sented above, try the illustrated/comic book
scries "Introducing... "or "...For Beginners."
Some of these include:
Introducing the Enlightenment, by Lloyd
Spencer and Andrzej Krauze. Cambridge:
Icon. 2000.
Introducing Media Studies, by Ziauddin Sardar
and Bonn Van Loon. New York: Totem. 2000.
Introducing Cultural Studies, by Ziauddin
Sardar and Bonn Van Loon, New York: Totem.
1998.
Postmodernism for Beginners, by Jim Powell,
New York: Writers and Readers. 1998.
Where i n the World..
continued from page 27
people around the world who are dedicated to dialogue and democratic exchange. In
2003 there will be a World Summit on the Information Society at the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Geneva. For the first time groups from civil soci-
ety will take part. In the past it has only been business and governments. There is a
growing movement to have democratic communication finally on the agenda of this
international organization which, among other activities, assigns the global orbital
slots for satellites. I hope that Alliance members will find out about this meeting
(www.comunica.org) and become involved in this effort. At a recent meeting to pre-
pare for this summit at UNESCO in Paris, I proposed that the ITU consider requiring
all military satellites to have a proportion of their transponders dedicated to peace.
It's about time. Of course that will take a long struggle, In the meanwhile we can
begin at home, on our own channels.
DeeDee Halleck is a University of California San Diego professor emeritus, long time
m edia activist, and author of the recen t book, Hand-Held Visions: The Impossible
Possibilities of Community Media. She can be reached by email at dhalleck@weber.ucsd.edu
This article will be presented in a White Paper session at the 2002 national conference
of the: Alliance for Community Media in Houston, Texas.
FrameRate's powerful technology combines
systems and software that allow you to create,
edit, and manage programming on your PEG
Access Channel. You can now capture
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If you've ever considered launching your own
channel as a practical way to inform those you
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Resources for the Access Practitioner/Philosopher
ORGANIZATIONS
Our Media, Not Theirs
A one day gathering of scholars
and practitioners of alterna
tive media from
around the world to
discuss practical and
theoretical issues within
"alternative," "radical,"
"community," "citizens'" ^^Jlp
media. The focus is primarily
on the Americas and Europe.
The 2001 conference was in
Washington, D.C.; the 2002 gather-
ing is scheduled for July 20 in
Barcelona. Information and papers
from the conferences are available on
the Our Media website:
faculty, menlo. edul- jhigginslourmedia
Union for Democratic Communication
This organization brings together
activists in academics and community-
based media to explore issues within alter-
native media. Visit www.udc.org
BOOKS
The Daily Planet: A Critic on the Capitalist
Culture Beat, by Patricia Aufderheide.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2000.
This collection of essays by cultural
critic and public intellectual Pat
Aufderheide explores a range of issues
related to the practice and culture of
media in the U.S. and around the world.
Topics include film, broadcasting, the
Internet, media literacy, public policy, as
well as access cable television's contribu-
tion to the public sphere, international
concerns concentrate on cinema and
grassroots video in Latin America.
Fissures in the Mediascape: An
International Study of Citizens' Media, by
dementia Rodriguez. Cresskill, NJ:
Hampton, 2001.
Rodriguez presents four international
case studies in grassroots electronic
media, framing the discussion within the
context of the democratization of commu-
nication and the survival of cultural identi-
ties. She explores numerous instances of
"citizen's media" around the world, and
focuses on instances in revolutionary
Nicaragua in the 1980s; Catalonia , Spain;
Colombia; and Latino radio in the U.S.
Rodriguez provides a con-
text for understanding the man-
ner in which "citizen's media" contribute
to social change.
Hand-Held Visions: The Uses of
Community Media, by DeeDee Halleck.
New York: Fordham University Press, 2002.
Media activist and film/video maker
DeeDee Halleck shares stories and
thoughts from her three decades of experi-
ence with community-based media in the
U.S. and around the world. The essays that
make up this book are drawn from diary
entries, articles, conference keynote
addresses and presentations. Halleck
thoughtfully combines people's stories,
case studies, personal experiences, and
theoretical frameworks to make the case
for grassroots-oriented media and nation-
al/international policies that encourage
community media. Topics touch on the
origins of Paper Tiger TV> Deep Dish
Network, and Gulf Crisis TV Project; public
access cable television as an international
model of community-based media;
women and media; international examples
of alternative media; and the Indy Media
Center movement. The book includes a
timeline of technology and alternative
media — a helpful tool for anyone explor-
ing the history of media industries and
media activism in the U.S.
Jamming the Media: A Citizen's Guide:
Reclaiming the Tools of Communication,
by Gareth Branwyn. San Francisco:
Chronicle Books, 1997.
Branwyn explains how to use public
access television, the internet, film, radio,
'zines, and other media — from conception,
through production, to distribution.
Radical
Media: Rebellious
Communication and
Social Movemen ts, by John
Downing, with Tamara Villareal Ford,
Geneve Gil, and Laura Stein. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001.
Downing, et. at,, present a theoretical
framework in which to consider "radical,"
"alternative" media, including notions of
audience, power, hegemony, community,
and the public sphere. Organizational
models of radical media are discussed.
Various media in Europe and the U.S. are
explored, including print, radio, video, the
Internet, community radio, and public
access television.
The Video Activist Handbook. 2nd ed., by
Thomas Harding. London: Pluto Press,
1997.
Harding provides examples of video
activism around the world, as well as skills
and strategies for pursuing social change
using video as a tool.
PUBLICATIONS
Community Media Review. 25th
Anniversary Issue (24.2: Summer 2001).
This issue of CMR, a publication of the
Alliance for Community Media, highlights
the 25th anniversary of the Alliance (for-
merly the National Federation of Local
Cable Programmers). Historical and philo-
sophically-oriented articles trace the roots
of access in the U.S. and the continuing
use of grassroots-based, democratic media
in the struggle for a more equitable society.
A must for everyone interested in the roots
and current state of affairs of the commu-
nity access video movement in the U.S.
To order, visit www.alliancecm.org.
mU33
For more than 12 years, the
Alliance for Communications
Democracy has been fighting
to preserve and strengthen
access. Though the odds against
us have been high, and the
mega-media, corporate foes
well-heeled and powerful, time
and again we've won in the
courts. We can't continue this
critical work without your
support. With the ramifications
of the 1996 Telecommunications
Act manifesting themselves, and
new legislation on the horizon,
we must be vigilant if we are to
prevail and preserve democratic
communications. If not us, who?
If not now, when? Please join
the Alliance for Communications
Democracy today!
Alliance for ~w
Communications
Democracy
Become an Alliance Subscriber for $350/year and receive detailed reports on
current court cases threatening access, pertinent historical case citations, and
other Alliance for Communications Democracy activities.
> Voting membership open to non-profit access operations for an annual
contribution of $3,000.
> Assoicate, Supporter and Subscriber memberships available to organizations
and individuals at the following levels:
• Alliance Associate, $2500 - copies of all briefs and reports.
• Alliance Supporter, $500 - copies of all reports and enclosures.
• Alliance Subscriber, $350 - copies of all reports.
Direct membership inquiries to ACD Treasurer Rob Brading,
Multnomah Community Television, 26000 SE Stark St,, Gresham, OR 97038,
telephone 503.667.7636, or email at rbradmg@mctv.org
MUNICATIONS DEMOCRACY ANNUAL MEETING {OPEN 1 T G ALL;
M. CHECK CONFERENCE PROGRAM FOR DETAILS
RIF Exchange Season IV
To begin in October 2002
i 1 1
RIF Exchange is a series"^**™*
that keeps teachers; parents,
volunteers, and the community
informed about the latest
developments in children's
literacy. *
Exchange is a presentation
iding is Fundamehlaf
- Jtt
Season IV Topics include:
Early Childhood Literacy
Families and Literacy
Motivating Readers
Reading Across Content Areas
Supporting Literacy Development
for Special Populations
Summer Reading
Fall 2002 ... New Topics... New Format... New Ideas
For Teachers and Parents!
For more information, please contact RIFNet at (800) 590-0041 or viait us at www.rifnet.org
34ill
Which First Amendment...
continued from page 15
"individual right," rather than a social good,
might be applied. Some producers include
hard core violence and pornography within
their shows, in part simply because "it's my
right," and despite possible repercussions to
the channel's existence.
in 1999, the Community Television
Corporation, a non-profit community- based
organization, took over management and
operation of the public access channel and
facilities. Prior to 1999, the corporate cable
system operators who ran public access cul-
tivated individual fiefdoms based on senior-
ity, dominated by "first comers" who have
insisted their rights include a lock on prized
prime-time positions in the program sched-
ule. This has been the legacy in San
Francisco of the "individual rights" interpre-
tation related to "first come, first served."
The CTC has begun to nurture values
more in line with the basic concepts of
access as understood by access facilities and
access participants across the country:
share resources, take your turn, move aside
to help others take their turn, help others
voice their ideas through this medium,
enable viewers to see and hear a wide vari-
ety of shows and perspectives, build a grass-
roots community of "all of us" through the
medium of television.
8 Similar perspectives on "more speech"
seem to be held by some participants in the
burgeoning Independent Media Center
(IMC) movement, which includes a signifi-
cant involvement of digital technologies to
distribute alternative programming via the
Internet and satellite television. The IMC
movement started in Seattle in Fall 1999,
giving a voice to global anti-corporate
protests against the World Trade
Organization. Since then, dozens of centers
have been established across the world in
concert with a renewed activist movement
against globalization. See http://www.indy-
media.org.
Bibliography
Aufderheide, Patricia. 1992. "Cable Television
and the Public Interest." Journal of
Communication 42.1 (Winter): 52-65.
— . 2000. The Daily Planet. A Critic on the
Capitalist Culture Beat. Minneapolis: U
Minnesota P.
Blau, Andrew. 1992. "The Promise of Public
Access." The Independent 15.3 (April): 22-26.
Dervin, Brenda, and Kathleen Clark. 1993.
"Communication and Democracy: A Mandate
for Procedural Invention." Communication
and Democracy. Ed. Slavko Splichal and fanet
Wasko. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. 103-140.
Den in Brenda, Tony Osborne, Priya
Jaikumar-Mahey, Robert Huesca, and John
Higgins. 1993. "Dialogue as Communication:
The ln-Between of Modernity/ Postmodernity."
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the
International Communication Association.
Washington, D.C.: May 27-31.
Devine, Robert H. 1992a. "The Future of a
Public." Community Television Review 15.6
(November/December): 8-9.
— . 1992b. "Video, Access and Agency." Paper
Presented at the Annual Conference of the
National Federation of Local Cable
Programmers. St. Paul, Minnesota. July 1 7.
— . 2001. "33 Years Later: Why Access?"
Community Media Review 24.2: 37-39.
Downing, John D.H. 1999. '"Hate Speech' and
"First Amendment Absolutism' Discourses in
the U.S." Discourse and Society 1 0.2: 1 75-1 69.
Good, Leslie. "Power, Hegemony, and
Communication Theory." Cultural Politics in
Contemporary America. Ed. Ian .Angus and Sut
JhalTy. New York: Routiedge, 1989. 51-64.
Gramsci, Antonio. 1946. Letters from Prison.
F.d. and trans. Lynne Lawner. New York:
Noonday, 1989.
flabermas, Jifrgen. 1962, The Structural
Transformation of the Public Sphere. Trans.
Thomas Buerger with Frederick Lawrence.
Cambridge, MA: MIT P. 1989.
Higgins, John VV. 1999. "Community Television
and the Vision of Media Literacy, Social Action,
and Empowerment." Journal of Broadcasting
and Electronic Media 43.4: 1-21.
— . 2001. "The Praxis of Access: Access and
Global Activism." Community Media Review
24.2: 19-21.
— . "Living Tolerance: U.S. Public Access
Producers and the Practices of "Free Speech."
Chapter in Community Media; International
Perspectives, Ed. Linda Fuller. In press 2002.
lohnson, Fred, 1994. "The Real Work is Media
Education." Community Media Review 17, 1
(January/February): 4+.
Kirkpatrick, Bill. 2002. "Re-thinking 'Access':
Cultural Barriers to Public Access Television."
pgr- WtttKKBttSBUtttKKtBSBB^^M
Additional Resources
Alternative Media (Culture, Representation, and Identity), by Chris Atton. Thouand
Oaks, California: Sage, 2002.
The Place of Media Power: Pilgrims and Witnesses of the Media Age, by Nick Couldry.
London: Routiedge, 2000.
Public Access Television: America's Electronic Soapbox, by Laura R. hinder. Westport,
Conn: Praeger, 1999.
Rising Up: Class Warfare in America from the Streets to the Airwaves, by Richard
Edmoiidsori. San Francisco: Librad Press, 2000.
Subject to Change: Guerrilla Television Revisited. New York: Oxford UP, 1997.
Community Media Review 25.3 (Summer).
Lippmann, Walter. 1939. "The Indispensable
Opposition." Atlantic Monthly 164.2 (August):
186-190.
Lukes, Steven, 1974. Power: A Radical View.
New York: MacMillan.
Meiklejohn, Alexander. 1948. Political Freedom:
The Constitutional Powers of the People. New
York: Harper.
Mill, John Stuart. 1859. On Liberty. New York:
Bantam, 1993.
Ruggles, Myles Alexander. 1994, The Audience
Reflected in the Medium of Law: A Critique of
the Political Economy of Speech Rights in the
United States. Norwood, NJ; Ablex.
Schauer, Frederick. 1985. "Free Speech and Its
Philosophical Roots." The First Amendment:
The Legacy of George Mason. Ed. T Daniel
Shumate. Fairfax, VA: George Mason UP
132-155.
— . 2001. "The Essential George Stoney."
Community Media Review 24:2 (Summer): 29-
31.
Stteeter, Thomas. 1990. "Beyond Freedom of
Speech and the Public Interest: The Relevance
of Critical Legal Studies to Communications
Policy." Journal of Communication 40.2
(Spring): 43-63.
Red Lion Broadcasting Co., Inc., et ai. v. Federal
Communications Commission etal. 395 U.S.
367 (1969).
John W. Biggins is an associate professor
in the Department of Mass Communication
atMenlo College. He is Vice President of the
board of directors of the San Francisco
Community Television Corporation (Access
San Francisco) and a member of the editorial
board of the Community Media Review.
Email: jh iggim@men to. edit
This article will be presented in a White
Paper session at the 2002 national confer-
ence of the Alliance for Community Media in
Houston, Texas.
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